A photograph, taken with my iPhone, of a carpet in a Marriott in Las Vegas. Those are actually my authentic feet — or, anyway, my genuine shoes — at the bottom of this skillfully rendered (and obviously professional) image.
We stayed in downtown Las Vegas on Saturday night, and I was mildly amused to notice that the floor carpet in our bedroom bore an Islamicate geometric design that I’ve seen previously at the Alhambra in Spain, in various places in Cairo, in the gardens of the Taj Mahal complex in India, and in probably two dozen other places during my travels.
An illustration of the common Islamicate “star pattern”
It’s yet more evidence, I suppose, of the way we’re being infiltrated and overrun by Muslims. You can put it in your files along with still other sinister examples of covert Muslim influence — such as Arabic numerals, the concept of zero, and loan words like admiral, sugar, Aldebaran, zenith, nadir, azimuth, alcohol, lemon, Betelgeuse, yoghurt, algebra, kiosk, algorithm, arsenal, turquoise, alfalfa, checkmate, almanac, artichoke, and punch.
The San Diego California Temple (image from LDS Media Library)
I’ve also seen components of the star pattern on the exterior of the San Diego California Temple. Which suggests that Islamic infiltration has penetrated far deeper than we had thought. Which, in turn, reminds me of a joke that I ran across some time ago:
A Kennedy-assassination conspiracy theorist dies and goes to heaven. When he arrives at the Pearly Gates, God is there to receive him. “Welcome,” says the Lord. “You are permitted to ask me one question, which I will answer truthfully.”
Without hesitating, the conspiracy theorist asks, “Who really shot J0hn F. Kennedy?”
The Lord replies, “Lee Harvey Oswald shot him from the sixth floor of the Texas School Book Depository. Oswald had no accomplices. He acted alone.”
The conspiracy theorist pauses, briefly ponders what the Lord has told him, and then says to himself, “Amazing! This goes even higher up than I had imagined!”
Details on the exterior of the San Diego California Temple of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints
Steve and Marilyn Rizley have been friends of ours for quite a few years now, and generous supporters of the Interpreter Foundation for many of those. When we first met them, he was an executive with a large American digital cable television provider, telecommunications, and home automation services company, and, if I’m not mistaken, was also serving as the president of the Scottsdale Arizona Stake of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Since that time, they’ve served in a number of other leadership positions in the Church — including periods spent presiding over the Ukraine L’viv Mission and, later, over Nauvoo Historic Sites — and, at present, they chair the Jesse and Amanda Knight Society. I was pleased to see them featured in the current issue of Y Magazine. Since not everybody out there is an alumnus of Brigham Young University and, thus, a recipient of the magazine, and since I really like the stories that they told, I hope they won’t mind my reproducing their accounts here:
A photo of Stephen and Marilyn Rizley for “Y Magazine,” taken by Jaren Wilkey. I hope that this can be justified as “fair use,” and that the Rizleys will be okay with my using it. If not, I hope that someone with standing will contact me — at which point I’ll replace the image above with the photograph of a sunset, a puppy, or a kitten.
A Truth Learned Early. “Even though I wasn’t raised in the gospel, I knew that I was a child of God. [My family] would go camping on the weekends. Friday after work we would drive at night in our camper. I would lie in my sleeping bag looking out a window at the mountain roads.
“One night, when I was supposed to be asleep, I heard a voice that said, ‘Marilyn, get in the cab.’ So I climbed into the cab between my mom and dad. My dad said, ‘What are you doing here? Get back in the camper and go to sleep.’ I said, ‘No, you told me to come up here.’ And just then a very large bird went flying through the window, shattering the glass right where my eyes had been looking out at the country road. Glass was on my pillow, and the bird was in the sink of our camper.
“I grew to know my Heavenly Father was watching out for me, and that is why I have my eyes today. As a freshman at BYU in 1974, I received my patriarchal blessing, which tells me my Heavenly Father has been kind to me. And I know that to be true.” (Marilyn Rizley)
A Powerful Family Story. “I grew up going to a wonderful church, but it was not The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. My mother’s father had been a bishop in the Church for many years in southeastern Arizona. One day, in 1923 or 1924, he was out plowing a field when a great big summer thunderstorm came up. He ran under a tree, the only tree in the field, and lightning struck him, straight through his head and out his left leg. It blew both of his boots off, and he fell over into the furrow.
“During that period of time, he had an experience. He went before Heavenly Father and said, ‘My family is destitute. I can’t leave my wife and my 10 children. I need time to go back.’ The water in the furrow stanched the burns and actually revived him. In the meantime, he took a handkerchief out of his overalls. All he could move was his arm, and he lay in the middle of a field waving the handkerchief. The Mangum family was driving in their old Ford a half mile away, and Sister Mangum said, ‘I hear someone calling, stop the car!’ They went back and found him.
“These stories, which my mother told me, opened the door for me to allow the missionaries to teach me.” (Stephen Rizley)
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