Latter-day Village Square

Would it be helpful if all of the stories in the Annotated Scriptures were listed in one place with their links? It would be a page similar to the Scripture Mastery page found in the Old Testament. (Where is that, you might ask… it’s at the very top of the list found on the home page.) If you were looking for a specific story it would allow you to look there first instead of just “tripping” across it as you reviewed the scriptures within various lesson blocks.

I do apply a certain “litmus” test when choosing stories to include. Most often they have been shared by a General Authority as a true story or as a parable. In a few cases they are true stories told by people I actually know. What you will not find are fiction stories such as the donuts for pushups or cards in a card file, etc.

Anyway, if it would be helpful, let me know and I’ll work on it!

I discovered that a setting in our free clipart gallery was blocking anyone from viewing and thereby downloading images.  I am not sure who or when this happened, but the problem is now fixed. All registered users can now view and download any of the +4300 available clipart images. I apologize for the confusion and inconvenience. 

Fighting SPAM

I hate spam (single piece anonymous mail) with a passion. It clogs up the internet, costing billions of dollars in lost bandwidth and disk space, which we as consumers, ultimately pay for. More importantly, it robs us of one of our most important possessions; time.

On the LDV server, I employ several spam blocking lists to help us filter out the spam trying to get into our email lists and personal email inboxes. I also report ALL spam messages that make it through those filters to Spamcop; one of the lists we use. I like to think that helps make SpamCop more effective. Yes, it’s reporting a problem after it has already happened, but if it helps someone else avoid spam coming from that server, then I feel my time is not wasted; other  Spamcop users are doing it for us.

Lately, I noticed a pattern developed in the locations where spam is coming from. These spammers, many of whom are run by eastern European mobs and crime syndicates, as reported by internet and security lists, use a rotating list of compromised computers and locations to launch their spam attacks. When I report spam to Spamcop, it returns the IP (internet location) of the original sending computer, as well as the abuse email address of the ISP responsible for that address. For some time, the following ISPs (country of origin in parens) appeared day in and day out as the source of my spam:

• Ttnet.net.tr (Turkey)
• Tpnet.pl (Poland)
• Kornet.net (Korea)
• Wanadoo.fr (France)
• Italia.it (Italy)
• t-ipnet.de (Germany)
• kiso.kr or bora.net (Korea)
• a few other minor players in Russia, Thailand, and the Phillipines

Each batch of spam would come from a different IP, so Spamcop and the other blocklists would not stop the flow of email, as the launch point would keep changing. NOTE: Most of these IPs are dynamic DSL connecting points, so each time the spammer connects, they are given a different IP address. Brilliant; their spewing address changes rapidly enough that the blocklists will not list them (blocklists tend to be conservative, not wanting to stop legitimate emails or traffic from an unsuspecting user of these ISPs services).

I started tracking the IPs from these frequent offenders, just saving them to a simple text file, sorted by ISP and then IP. After about 30 entries (about two weeks worth of spam) from ttnet.net.tr, I used DNSStuff.com to determine the entire IP address range of the DSL connecting points. E.g., for ttnet.net.tr in Turkey, those 30 IPs all fell into these ranges:

78.160.0.0 - 78.191.255.255
85.96.0.0 - 85.111.255.255
88.224.0.0 - 88.255.255.255

Risking the possibility that a legitimate LDV customer might try to connect and register from Turkey, I blocked these ranges at our data center hardware firewall, meaning I prevented ALL internet traffic from those locations; browser requests, email, IM. That’s it, the email from there just doinks on our firewall and dies; no rejection notices (so the spammer will even know our server continues to exist), no blocklist notices (our server sends a note to any blocked server telling them which blocklist we used to reject their email), and no objectionable messages getting to our server. NOTE: we have no current subscribers from Turkey, I checked our records. I believe the potential loss of Turkish subscribers was less important then stopping the spam garbage from coming in. Since I did this, our server has received no emails identified as coming from Turkey.

Now I continue to track the other offending ISPs. I say offending IPs, because they all received abuse reports from Spamcop about the fraudulent use of their networks. They simply choose to ignore the problem (they could track down who exactly sent the spam; I provided the location (IP) and the time of the emails. Their logs can show them who was connected at that time. I know this from working for an ISP; that information is ALWAYS available.) When I have an IP range sufficiently identified to outweigh the value of any potential subscribers (we do have at least one legitimate subscriber using kornet.net as an ISP) from there, I will block it.

Now you know at least one of the things I do from midnight to 7-8 am when everyone else is sleeping.

Starting a new year is so exciting and I thought I might share a few ideas on how to use the Annotated Scriptures to add to your lessons without involving a lot of extra time. You may have noticed in the Teacher’s Manual a diagram of how the Pearl of Great Price correlates with Genesis. If you actually go to the Table of Contents for Genesis in the Annotated Scriptures you will see that a detailed correlation is done for you and you can copy it for your students. It lets them see just how much the inspired scriptures have added to our understanding. Although this technique works really well in giving an overview of Genesis/Moses/Abraham, the ToC of any book of the OT can be copied off and used as an overview as you begin a new section.

In addition to the correlation, beginning in Moses 5, you will also find a comparison of Genesis and Moses where once again you get an insight of the truths with which we, as Latter-day Saints, have been blessed.

All of us have been asked to pay particular attention to the Teaching Emphasis — and this year they begin fast and furiously. Each one is marked, and “chained” so that you won’t miss them. By following the chains you might decide to actually cover the principle at a later time rather than piling them all on at once — your choice.

Note the “Insight” icon on Moses 5:12 with a reference to Adam and Eve teaching their children. When clicked, it will take you to a PowerPoint presentation. It is hoped that this presentation will support the Teaching Emphasis and provide a springboard for discussion. By clicking the “chain” found at the end of the verse you will be led through a series of related scriptures that will eventually bring you back to your beginning place. There are many other presentations throughout the Old Testament — I hope you enjoy finding them and they will lend some variety to you classroom.

I find that if I first read the Teacher’s Manual and then the assigned scripture block in the Annotated Scriptures, checking the General Authority quotes, reviewing the graphics, object lessons or stories included there, that I can generally have a lesson pretty well completed within a 30 minute time block.

If you need additional research I will try to provide it — just blog your questions (add a comment)!

Hope this helps to make your year a little less stressful!

In Vancouver, Washington designing/building scenery for “With Mine Own Hand” - A new musical, telling the story of Nephi.

This was a production conceived by my dear friend Ramona Zabriskie - a project she and her friend Becky Alexander have been laboring over for 15 years - and when she called asking if I could take over the set design a few months ago, I was thrilled for the opportunity.

The cast was well into the rehearsal period when I arrived from my home in Utah just two weeks before the show opened. I had been so busy with Latter-day Village that I had really done very little in the way of designing the show before I arrived. The basic platforms had already been planned and soon were up, ready for finishing at the Vancouver Stake Center. I was the house guest of an assistant director, Lori Williams, who I met a few minutes before I went to sleep that first night. As it turned out, Lori is a professional costumer, unbeknownst to Ramona. Divine intervention was at play, for we ended up creating much of the set with fabric! I could never have done it without Lori’s constant expert help.

Here is a photo of the Tree of Life we toiled over so carefully - the picture cannot do justice to the impact of it appearing aglow on stage to the gasps of the audience.

After performances, families came up, wanting to touch the tree and have their picture taken in front of it. It turned out better than any of us even hoped.

I took my laptop to try to continue to work on the website while in Vancouver - but I obviously was not to be dividing my focus, for it completely failed to work for me, and before I knew it, I hadn’t a spare moment to spend on anything but making the scenery.

It was a special treat to see Ramona’s husband Dale on stage again as Old Nephi - as he recalled and wrote his history on the plates. Dale and Ramona and I met when we were all 18 at the Playmill Theater in West Yellowstone, Montana - and I had hardly seen him perform since then (except to sing and do skits etc). He did a marvelous job. As did his son Grant, who played Young Nephi. Grant was so scared as a little boy to even give a talk in Primary, so watching him take the stage so powerfully was awesome.

The cast, production staff and their families helped immensely in the construction of the set. Between large amounts of sweat, a good share of tears, and bloody knuckles, punctured and blistered fingers - and with much duct tape, hot glue, plastic ties, and an old faithful staple gun, we put our blood, sweat and tears into the scenery and of course the whole show. It was a wonderful production!

The Director of Cultural Arts for the church flew up from SLC for the final performance and spent a lot of time after the show sharing his impressions - that it was a triumph in effectively sticking with the scriptures verbatim in a dramatic production - that the testimonies of the performers were so powerfully felt by the audience - that every aspect of the show was so carefully attended to.

The show was filmed by Ramona’s son Chris, and the DVD can be ordered now at http://www.nephi-story.com. The script will soon be available for future productions. The music is fabulous. It was an honor to be a part of it and meet so many dear and talented people.

Debra