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Report says health care will cover more, cost more
Apr 23 04:01 AM US/Eastern
By RICARDO ALONSO-ZALDIVAR
Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON (AP) - President Barack Obama's health care overhaul law is getting a mixed verdict in the first comprehensive look by neutral experts: More Americans will be covered, but costs are also going up.
Economic experts at the Health and Human Services Department concluded in a report issued Thursday that the health care remake will achieve Obama's aim of expanding health insurance—adding 34 million to the coverage rolls.
But the analysis also found that the law falls short of the president's twin goal of controlling runaway costs, raising projected spending by about 1 percent over 10 years. That increase could get bigger, since Medicare cuts in the law may be unrealistic and unsustainable, the report warned.
It's a worrisome assessment for Democrats.
In particular, concerns about Medicare could become a major political liability in the midterm elections. The report projected that Medicare cuts could drive about 15 percent of hospitals and other institutional providers into the red, "possibly jeopardizing access" to care for seniors.
The report from Medicare's Office of the Actuary carried a disclaimer saying it does not represent the official position of the Obama administration. White House officials have repeatedly complained that such analyses have been too pessimistic and lowball the law's potential to achieve savings.
The report acknowledged that some of the cost-control measures in the bill—Medicare cuts, a tax on high-cost insurance and a commission to seek ongoing Medicare savings—could help reduce the rate of cost increases beyond 2020. But it held out little hope for progress in the first decade.
"During 2010-2019, however, these effects would be outweighed by the increased costs associated with the expansions of health insurance coverage," wrote Richard S. Foster, Medicare's chief actuary. "Also, the longer-term viability of the Medicare ... reductions is doubtful." Foster's office is responsible for long-range costs estimates.
Republicans said the findings validate their concerns about Obama's 10-year, nearly $1 trillion plan to remake the nation's health care system.
"A trillion dollars gets spent, and it's no surprise—health care costs are going to go up," said Rep. Dave Camp, R-Mich., a leading Republican on health care issues. Camp added that he's concerned the Medicare cuts will undermine care for seniors.
In a statement, HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius sought to highlight some positive findings for seniors. For example, the report concluded that Medicare monthly premiums would be lower than otherwise expected, due to the spending reductions.
"The Affordable Care Act will improve the health care system for all Americans, and we will continue our work to quickly and carefully implement the new law," the statement said.
Passed by a divided Congress after a year of bitter partisan debate, the law would create new health insurance markets for individuals and small businesses. Starting in 2014, most Americans would be required to carry health insurance except in cases of financial hardship. Tax credits would help many middle-class households pay their premiums, while Medicaid would pick up more low-income people. Insurers would be required to accept all applicants, regardless of their health.
The U.S. spends $2.5 trillion a year on health care, far more per person than any other developed nation, and for results that aren't clearly better when compared to more frugal countries. At the outset of the health care debate last year, Obama held out the hope that by bending the cost curve down, the U.S. could cover all its citizens for about what the nation would spend absent any changes.
The report found that the president's law missed the mark, although not by much. The overhaul will increase national health care spending by $311 billion from 2010-2019, or nine-tenths of 1 percent. To put that in perspective, total health care spending during the decade is estimated to surpass $35 trillion.
Administration officials argue the increase is a bargain price for guaranteeing coverage to 95 percent of Americans. They also point out that the law will decrease the federal deficit by $143 billion over the 10-year period.
The report's most sober assessments concerned Medicare.
In addition to flagging provider cuts as potentially unsustainable, the report projected that reductions in payments to private Medicare Advantage plans would trigger an exodus from the popular alternative. Enrollment would plummet by about 50 percent. Seniors leaving the private plans would still have health insurance under traditional Medicare, but many might face higher out-of-pocket costs.
In another flashing yellow light, the report warned that a new voluntary long-term care insurance program created under the law faces "a very serious risk" of insolvency.
Copyright 2010 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
First black priesthood holder recalls historic day
By Chris Peterson
Mormon Times
Published: 2010-04-23 00:16:29
Joseph Freeman's friend wondered what was wrong. He noticed that Freeman was visibly concerned -- a mystery since the man who is usually smiling had just received historic news that would positively change his and many others' lives.
Freeman -- who would become the first Mormon of black African descent to receive the Melchizedek Priesthood in the LDS Church after the 1978 priesthood revelation -- was asked by his friend what his worry was. "This means I have to go home teaching now," Freeman joked.
Freeman, 58, recently spoke of his conversion and his groundbreaking experience.
Long before the LDS Church appeared on his radar, Freeman was a devoted religious person. At 10 years old, he was baptized as a member of the Holiness Church.
Furthermore, it was his dream to become a lay minister in the faith, something he accomplished after earning an evangelist's license.
When The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints was introduced into his life, it was his future wife, Toe Isapela Leituala, who presented it. Freeman -- who was a 19-year-old Army enlistee stationed in Hawaii -- said that Leituala, a Samoan convert of six years, made an impactful impression on him.
As she explained the Word of Wisdom to Freeman, he realized he was already living some of it. "I didn't take drugs or drink alcohol, but I did like to drink tea and have a cup of coffee once in a while," he said. "But I thought, that if she can live closer to God by not partaking of those things, I decided that I can do that, too."
Freeman said that he was impressed with everyone he met in the Mormon faith, including Leituala's father, with whom he had lengthy talks. "You hit a barrel and it's hollow," Freeman said. "But with these Mormons," he reflected, "the barrel was full -- full of love."
Freeman decided to abandon his evangelist's license, and upon fully being aware that he could not receive the priesthood, Freeman was baptized and confirmed a member of the LDS Church on Sept. 30, 1973.
In 1974, Freeman and Leituala were married, and a year later, Freeman left the military and he and his wife eventually moved to Salt Lake City.
The First Presidency of the LDS Church announced on June 8, 1978, that President Spencer W. Kimball had received a revelation that said, in part,"every faithful, worthy man in the church may receive the holy priesthood ... and enjoy with his loved ones every blessing that flows therefrom, including the blessings of the temple ... without regard for race or color."
Usually, those ordained to the office of a priest in the Aaronic Priesthood must wait about a year before being ordained to the office of an elder. But church leaders felt that Freeman's faithfulness to the gospel and his spiritual aptitude warranted his being elevated to an elder immediately.
Freeman was given the Melchizedek Priesthood three days after President Kimball received the revelation.
Freeman accepted the news that he was originally given: that he would have to wait a period of three to six months before he would be able to enter the temple, receive those blessings and be sealed to his family.
But church leaders again felt differently and ultimately Freeman was able to attend the Salt Lake Temple with his family, becoming one of the first men of black African descent to receive those ordinances. President Thomas S. Monson, who at the time was a member of the Quorum of the Twelve, officiated at the ceremony.
Freeman credits divine intervention in the cases of priesthood leaders reconsidering by letting him receive the Melchizedek Priesthood and being able to attend the temple earlier.
"Those leaders had one thing in their minds, but God changed their minds," Freeman said. "God can micromanage our hearts and souls."
E-mail: cpeterson@desnews.com
MormonTimes.com is produced by the Deseret News in Salt Lake City, Utah.
It is not an official publication of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
APRIL 12, 2010 How to Fight the IRS
Brace yourself: The chances of being audited are rising. So if it happens to you, here's what to do—and what not to do.
By TOM HERMAN
Get ready for increased scrutiny by the Internal Revenue Service.
With Washington searching for ways to cut the budget deficit, IRS officials face intense pressure to collect more revenue. The agency plans more audits, especially of taxpayers in high brackets or those who are self-employed and deal in large amounts of cash. The IRS also has turned up the heat in such areas as offshore tax evasion, including undisclosed foreign bank accounts.
More Americans may be audited by the IRS this year, thanks to new pressure on the agency to collect from laggard taxpayers. The Wall Street Journal's former tax columnist Tom Herman explains to Kelsey Hubbard some smart -- and not-so-smart -- ways to fight back.
If you become an IRS target, what should you do?
For many people, the answer may seem simple: Surrender as quickly as possible, no matter how good a case you have.
Even if you are sure you are right and have all the records to prove it, fighting the IRS, one of the most powerful government bureaucracies on the planet, can be the ultimate nightmare. Seemingly routine struggles can drag on for years, leading to endless frustration and sleepless nights. Even those who eventually triumph may wonder if the fight was worth all the time, effort and expense.
But if you're ready for the challenge, there are many smart ways to fight back—and win. Start by keeping comprehensive, well-organized documents. Always scour the IRS's claims for mistakes. Don't get discouraged when dealing with tax officials. If you are convinced you are correct, consider pushing your case up the chain of command. Try the IRS appeals division. You may also get valuable help from the IRS's taxpayer advocate service. Or go to court.
At the same time, there are some classically dumb mistakes to avoid—everything from simply ignoring the IRS to arguing that it somehow is voluntary to pay federal income tax.
Here are some combat tips from lawyers, accountants and "enrolled agents," who are federally licensed tax experts authorized to represent taxpayers at all levels of the IRS.
Hire the wrong tax preparer: Beware of someone who asks you to sign a blank tax return. Or whose fee is based on a percentage of how much you save in taxes. Or who promises to get you a significantly higher refund than anyone else can. People like these are likely to prepare outrageous returns that will land you in deep trouble with the IRS.
The Ostrich approach: One of the biggest mistakes is to bury your head in the sand and ignore IRS notices and letters, hoping the tax collectors eventually will lose interest and go away. "When dealing with the IRS, the best thing someone can do is to maintain regular communication," says Charles P. Rettig, a tax lawyer at Hochman, Salkin, Rettig, Toscher & Perez P.C., in Beverly Hills, Calif. "Whether during an audit or in the tax-collection process, ignoring the IRS is simply a bad idea."
Act professionally throughout the process and reply to IRS correspondence on time. The IRS is very serious about deadlines. Also, "keep a record of all communications and correspondence with the IRS, including proof of delivery, and keep your records organized," says Caroline D. Ciraolo, a tax lawyer at Rosenberg Martin Greenberg LLP in Baltimore.
Frivolity: Some people tell the IRS and judges that it somehow is voluntary to file a federal income-tax return and pay taxes. Or that their wages, tips and other income for personal services aren't taxable. Or that they are residents of a state but not of the United States. Or variations of these themes.
Don't even think of making any of those claims. Tax Court judges routinely label these as "frivolous" arguments, delaying tactics or both. More important, judges often impose stiff monetary penalties on those foolish enough to persist.
Ross MacDonald
Bribery: This is even dumber—and far more dangerous—than frivolity. In a case last year, for instance, a Houston-area resident was sentenced to prison for two years for trying to bribe an IRS agent, according to a report by the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration. The U.S. Attorney's office in the southern district of Texas said the man offered the agent $2,500 to reduce his tax liability to around $500 from $49,000. In addition, the man "repeatedly offered the agent pizza from his restaurant as part of the deal."
Automatic Surrender: Just because the IRS says you owe money doesn't mean that's correct. The agency makes mistakes—plenty of them, even in computing penalties and interest. "I have had several clients receive notices regarding unreported securities sales," says Stephen W. DeFilippis, the owner of West Suburban Income Tax Service in Wheaton, Ill., and an enrolled agent. "In these cases, the clients exchanged mutual funds one for another and didn't realize that's a taxable event." The IRS, he says, sent a notice "including the gross proceeds in income and assessing tax on the additional income."
But the IRS missed a vital point, he says: "The clients brought me these notices, and in each case the mutual-fund exchanges resulted in a loss. So instead of owing a large sum to the IRS, the clients got a refund."
This story shows how foolish it can be to pay what the IRS says you owe without "thoroughly investigating" the subject, says Mr. DeFilippis.
But if the amount in question is relatively small and the issue is confusing, some may conclude it isn't worth the time, trouble and expense of challenging the IRS and may decide to pay in order to make the problem disappear. It depends on the details of each case, including how confident you are of victory and how much time and expense you are willing to devote to the battle.
Smart Moves
GET HELP: Having a smart, well-prepared tax expert on your side can be a tremendous advantage. Not only will they know the ins and outs of the tax code, but also they can take over the often-exhausting job of dealing with the IRS —and help you decide how far to push a fight.
Take the case of Elizabeth Chapman, a 66-year-old poet and writing consultant in northern California. Nearly three years ago, the IRS notified Ms. Chapman that her 2005 federal income-tax return was to be examined. Fortunately, Ms. Chapman had chosen an experienced and highly regarded tax professional, Claudia Hill, an enrolled agent and the owner of a tax-preparation and advisory firm in Cupertino, Calif.
Ms. Hill arranged a meeting with the IRS so that she could present evidence on behalf of Ms. Chapman. Even before that meeting, Ms. Chapman received a note from the IRS saying its calculations showed she owed more than $15,900, Ms. Hill says.
Ms. Hill finally met with the IRS, laid out Ms. Chapman's case, and later sent more material by mail. The IRS eventually responded with a letter saying its new calculations showed Ms. Chapman owed only $151. But Ms. Hill felt confident the correct answer was zero. She asked the IRS agent's manager to intervene—"but to no avail," she says.
Ms. Hill didn't give up. Eventually, an IRS appeals officer concluded Ms. Chapman didn't owe a penny.
Ms. Chapman won another battle in U.S. Tax Court. After hearing about the difficulties she had encountered, the judge ordered the IRS to pay $3,475.06 in fees that Ms. Chapman had incurred. In his opinion, handed down last October, the judge concluded that the IRS had "presented no evidence showing it was reasonable to determine" that Ms. Chapman owed anything. (An IRS spokesman declined comment on Ms. Chapman's case.)
The IRS check finally arrived in March of this year, Ms. Hill says. She says Ms. Chapman "is amazed," adding: "I'm pleased."
Become a Pack rat: Generally, you should keep returns and all supporting documents for at least three years from the original due date, including extensions. Even better, save all records for at least six or seven years. The reason: If you didn't report income that should have been reported, and if it is more than 25% of the income shown on the return, the time period doesn't run out until six years after the return was filed, according to an IRS publication.
But be warned that there is no time limit on the IRS if someone hasn't filed a return, or files a return that is "false" or "fraudulent with intent to evade tax." You should save some records even longer. For example, keep indefinitely documents showing what you paid for investments that you own and haven't yet sold—such as stocks, bonds, mutual funds, art objects or a home, including improvements.
It may be a nuisance, but all that paper could be vitally important if you are challenged by the IRS. The more complete and well-organized your record keeping, the better your chances of prevailing. The case of Ms. Chapman illustrates this lesson. Judge Gerber of the U.S. Tax Court wrote that Ms. Chapman had given the IRS "documentation that reflected that she was entitled to deductions in an amount that was in excess of the amount respondent questioned."
Appeal: If you feel you have a bulletproof case but are getting nowhere with an auditor, stay calm—and consider asking to speak to that person's manager. If that doesn't help either, consider taking your case to an IRS appeals office. An IRS publication says "most differences" between taxpayers and the IRS that reach the appeals level are settled. For details, see IRS Publication 556.
TRY THE ADVOCATE: You may also consider taking your case to the IRS Taxpayer Advocate Service, or TAS, an organization within the IRS created to help taxpayers resolve problems, as well as advocate for changes in the system.
You may be eligible for help if you have tried to resolve your tax problems through normal IRS channels and haven't gotten anywhere, or if you believe an IRS procedure isn't working as it should, such as an amended return that hasn't been processed, an advocate spokesman says.
The service also may be able to help taxpayers whose problems are causing financial woes or significant cost, including the expense of hiring a pro to represent them. Among the classic types of cases accepted by the TAS are those in which a taxpayer is experiencing, or is about to experience, a financial hardship due to an IRS action, such as a lien, levy or seizure, or some IRS inaction, such as a delayed or lost refund check, a spokesman says. For details, see the IRS Web site (www.irs.gov/advocate) and IRS Publication 1546, or call 877-777-4778.
Partial Pay: If you can't pay everything you agree that you owe, consider arranging to pay through an installment plan. Try the online payment agreement option on the IRS Web site to see whether you qualify.
If you are facing a financial crisis and have no hope of repaying everything you owe, consider asking the IRS to settle for some lesser amount. Getting the IRS to agree to an "offer in compromise" usually is difficult. But the IRS recently announced "new flexibility" in considering offers from taxpayers facing "economic troubles, including the recently unemployed."
Specifically, IRS employees "will be permitted to consider a taxpayer's current income and potential for future income when negotiating an offer in compromise," the IRS said. "Normally, the standard practice is to judge an offer amount on a taxpayer's earnings in prior years." However, the IRS said it may also require the taxpayer to agree to pay more "if the taxpayer's financial situation improves significantly."
More broadly, an IRS spokesman says the agency is "continually working to reduce taxpayer burden by seeing to it that tax issues are resolved in the least costly and most expeditious manner possible."
He points out that the IRS earlier this year "began rolling out a series of streamlined and simplified notices, designed to reduce the potential for confusion."
GO TO COURT: Most people who decide to slug it out with the IRS in court do so by filing a petition with the U.S. Tax Court, which is based in Washington, D.C., but holds trials in many cities around the nation. If you pick this court, you usually don't need to pay the amount in dispute while your case is pending there, according to the court's Web site (www.ustaxcourt.gov). That site has details on how to get your day in Tax Court, what types of cases the court accepts and answers to other frequently asked questions.
"In many cities, there are low-income-taxpayer clinics that will offer free representation in tax disputes," says Ms. Ciraolo of Rosenberg Martin Greenberg. "Also check to see if there is a U.S. Tax Court pro bono program" in your area.
If the Tax Court decides you do owe some tax, or if you settle or agree to some tax liability, the law generally says interest runs on unpaid tax from the date it was originally due until paid in full, the court says. "Interest also runs on some penalties."
But the Tax Court isn't your only option. Instead, you could choose to go to federal district court or the U.S. Court of Federal Claims. Generally, though, those courts will hear tax cases only after you have paid the contested amount and filed a refund claim with the IRS. See IRS Publication 5.
Picking the right court can be tricky. The answer will depend on the intricacies of your dispute and other factors, such as prior decisions made by those courts on the issues in your case.
Lobby Congress: This is a very long shot. But occasionally, someone comes up with a compelling story that attracts press coverage and leads to tax-law changes. During the 1990s, Congress approved changes in the "innocent-spouse law" after lawmakers were moved by the plight of numerous divorced or separated couples who had filed joint returns and where one, usually the woman, later argued she was being saddled with taxes that rightly should be paid by the other person. The changes were designed to make it easier, in certain circumstances, for one spouse to be relieved of the liability.
Mr. Herman, a former Wall Street Journal tax columnist, is a writer in New York. He can be reached at reports@wsj.com.
Copyright 2009 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved
Should the Beatles have worked it out?
40 years after the split, experts say it was time to let it be
By Tony Scalfani
msnbc.com contributor
updated 2:37 p.m. CT, Wed., April 7, 2010
Seven years and seven months. That’s how long the world officially knew the Beatles as a recording act, spanning from the date they released their first single in England to the day their breakup was announced on April 10, 1970.
Looking back after 40 years, that seems like a ridiculously short lifespan for such an important band. The time frame seems ever tinier considering the longevity of other popular bands of their era, like the Rolling Stones, the Who and the Kinks, or bands that came later, like Bon Jovi and U2.
Did the Fab Four call it quits too soon? The answer might seem to be yes, considering interest in the band never really faded. Sales were massive for both the “Anthology” series from the mid-1990s and last year’s CD remasters. Rolling Stone reported in December the surprising fact that the Beatles had the biggest selling album of the last decade with “1,” and that they were second only to Eminem as the top selling artists of the decade.
In 1983, Keith Richards told Musician magazine there “was no need” for the Beatles to have broken up and that the band “could’ve taken a couple of years off, resolved their problems and still carried on.” But as tantalizing as that “what if” scenario might seem to fans, there was little chance the band could have worked as a unit any longer, said eight authors of Beatle books (three of whom knew the band). In both the personal and artistic realms, these writers said, it was time for each band member to let things be.
By summer 1969, when the Beatles recorded their final album, “Abbey Road,” the musicians were already feeling they’d long realized any collective artistic aspirations, said Ken Mansfield, the former U.S. manager of the Beatles’ label Apple and author of “The White Book: The Beatles, the Bands, the Biz: An Insider's Look at an Era.”
‘No place to go’
“There’s one subtlety that people don’t realize, and we discussed this one time at a meeting in a Hyde Park hotel: they had no place to go,” Mansfield said. “They couldn’t be more No. 1 — they couldn’t be bigger. They had the wealth, they had the success, they had all the things that would be goals for a rock band. That was one of the reasons we did Apple Records. It gave them something new to do.”
The decision to stop touring in 1966 deprived them of the normal performer-audience dynamic that keeps bands energized, said Chris O’Dell, a former Apple Records employee who penned the tome “Miss O’Dell: My Hard Days And Long Nights With The Beatles, the Stones, Bob Dylan, Eric Clapton And the Women They Loved.”
“As a live band on tour, they had nothing to shoot for,” she said. “They couldn’t hear themselves. It wasn’t fun for them. George (Harrison) once told me the best fun he ever had in the Beatles was in Hamburg, Germany — that was like really touring and really being out there, but that didn’t happen for them afterwards.”
Because the Beatles in their early days were united like few other bands, they were able to weather troubles that might have destroyed other acts, Mansfield said. But by 1969, that unity was coming undone. Paul McCartney disagreed with the other three members about who should manage the group, John Lennon was more interested in working with new wife Yoko Ono, and Harrison was disgruntled at not getting more songs on the albums.
Bob Spitz, author of the New York Times best seller “The Beatles: The Biography,” said these disagreements alone would have kept them from sticking around much longer, much less releasing another record up to the high standard of “Abbey Road.”
“It wasn’t likely, based on their emotions at the time, that we were going to get fabulous material as a group from them,” Spitz said. “Emotionally they weren’t in any shape to be the Beatles anymore. They didn’t like each other. When the Beatles got together they were young guys. By the time they put out ‘Abbey Road,’ their relationships had no bearing on each other as a group anymore.”
OK, but then how did the band exit on such a high note if they were in such awful shape? Well, to pinch a phrase from the Fabs, they knew it was getting very near the end. So said Peter Doggett, the author of “Abbey Road/Let It Be: The Beatles” and the forthcoming “You Never Give Me Your Money: The Battle for the Soul of the Beatles.”
“I think in their hearts they all knew it was the last record, so they could all say ‘OK, I’m gonna be on my best behavior for a few weeks and then we’ll get this over,’” Doggett said. “If they had to think, ‘We’re gonna do this one, and then another one in seven months’ time,’ I don’t think they would actually have managed to work together with that close knit internal harmony.”
Tim Riley, author of “Tell Me Why: A Beatles Commentary,” echoed this sentiment and said that during the 1960s, the Beatles “were all still really in thrall to their collective muse and that muse carried them through ruptures and conflicts.”
Riley said the band’s breakup came about at the right time: “It’s one of the key aspects of their story that they actually found a way to stay together those last couple of years and turn out a lot of great material. But it’s really in spite of the very stark internal conflicts that kept arising again and again.”
The roots of Harrison’s discontent ran deep, said Bill Harry, who founded Liverpool’s Mersey Beat magazine and was a friend of Lennon and original member Stu Sutcliffe. Although Lennon and McCartney became the band’s main songwriters, Harrison, said Harry, was the first Beatle mentioned in Mersey Beat as having had an original song recorded, the instrumental “Cry for a Shadow” (later co-credited with Lennon).
“(Then) when it started with the big Lennon and McCartney thing, and it was hit after hit, I used to see George and (ask) ‘Why aren’t you writing the music?’” Harry said. “I think the Lennon and McCartney thing was too much for him to sort of handle.”
Harry, who has written 24 books on the Beatles, said that fact alone assured a limited shelf life of the band: “Everyone thinks it would be nice if the Beatles could have had another five years, but they couldn’t. The time was over.”
One more album?
But what if the Fab Four had come together for one more album? This question was posited by David Furst, a producer at Washington DC’s WAMU-FM for a program in which music writer Richie Unterberger took part. Unterberger, who penned the book “The Unreleased Beatles: Music and Film,” said fans shouldn’t look to the early Beatles’ solo albums to imagine what a group effort might have sounded like.
“A really challenging aspect of trying to predict what would have happened is that the songwriting would have inevitably changed if all four of them had been together,” he said. “Part of what made the Beatles so special is they had this synergy where they create more than they can do on their own.”
Unterberger said it was fortunate the Beatles’ albums never ended up deteriorating in quality, like those of bands that had more longevity. “They went out with a great record, and most importantly, a record on which the sense of group unity is still really strong,” he said.
Steve Turner, author of “A Hard Day's Write: The Stories Behind Every Beatles Song,” agreed: “You can look at some of the songs they wrote during the Beatles that got left over and put on solo albums — but whether you put all those together and it would have made a follow up to ‘Abbey Road,’ I don’t know. They seemed to have reached their limit.
“I can’t think of anything that they did better in subsequent years individually,” Turner said. “I can’t think of a particular kind of studio development or technical development where you’d think, ‘Gosh if only they’d pursued that.’”
© 2010 msnbc.com. Reprints
URL: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/36180025/ns/entertainment-music/page/2/
Elder J. Golden Kimball was in reality just a cowboy in a suit with a calling to serve the Lord and the people of the Church. He was himself and tried the best he knew how---and the people loved him for it.
He had a special connection with the youth of the Church---sort of. While they knew he had "imperfections" he was still a General Authority and often shared his testimony of the gospel with them. He also knew how to put them in their place when they needed it. And they respected him for it.
The story is told of a stake president in Wyoming who wrote Salt Lake for help with his youth. The young men were going around with pistols in their hip pockets and shooting them off after basketball games and dances. There was going to be a killing if somebody didn't talk them into changing their cowboy ways.
So President Heber J. Grant called J. Golden into his office and said, "This sounds like an assignment for you, Brother Kimball."
J. Golden protested, "Why me?"
President Grant said, "Well, you're the only cowboy that's a General Authority. They'll listen to you!"
So J. Golden went to Wyoming. He wrote the stake president and asked him to gather all the youth into the largest hall they had. The stake president was happy to oblige. When the time came, they were all there. The doors were even locked so the youth couldn't get out.
The troublemakers were yahooing, firing off pistols and throwing paper airplanes and showing no respect for Brother Kimball when he arrived. J. Golden took all this in and thought the direct approach best.
"Go to Hell!" he said.
The auditorium suddenly became still.
He said it again, "Go to Hell!"
You could hear a pin drop. All eyes were riveted on the angry scarecrow at the podium. Having grabbed their attention, J. Golden forged ahead. "That's where you're all going to go if you don't change your ways! I hear some of you have been walking around town with pistols in your hip pockets. Better be careful---might go off and blow your brains out!"
And he walked out of the hall. The roughnecks were left with their mouths hanging open.
Later, the stake president wrote to say the rowdies were better behaved after learning where their seat of reason was. (J. Golden Kimball Stories, p. 30-31).
When it comes to youth, sometimes it is better to be honest and straight with them. They more often than not will respect you for it----they did J. Golden Kimball.
