President Hinckley Passes
Although it's outside my blog's focus, I'd feel remiss if I didn't express admiration for Gordon B. Hinckley, president of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, who just passed away tonight at age 97. Much unlike a prophet of doom and gloom, President Hinckley was an optimist who encouraged us to stand taller, to take longer strides and do better.
One of my favorite talks he gave was entitled "Slow to Anger." Quite amazingly, he doesn't recollect ever quarreling with his wife, who he'd been with for 67 years. In this talk on anger, he quotes a story that made me laugh:
Once a man who had been slandered by a newspaper came to Edward Everett asking what to do about it. Said Everett, “Do nothing! Half the people who bought the paper never saw the article. Half of those who saw it, did not read it. Half of those who read it, did not understand it. Half of those who understood it, did not believe it. Half of those who believed it are of no account anyway” (“Sunny Side of the Street,” Nov. 1989; see also Zig Ziglar, Staying Up, Up, Up in a Down, Down World [2000], 174).
For more info on his passing, see the LDS Newsroom, this article in the New York Times, or other tributes.
About Tom Johnson
I'm an API technical writer based in the Seattle area. On this blog, I write about topics related to technical writing and communication — such as software documentation, API documentation, AI, information architecture, content strategy, writing processes, plain language, tech comm careers, and more. Check out my API documentation course if you're looking for more info about documenting APIs. Or see my posts on AI and AI course section for more on the latest in AI and tech comm.
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