This week’s new article in Interpreter: A Journal of Mormon Scripture:   Addressing Prickly Issues   Have a wonderful weekend!    

    A brief but interesting theological reflection from my friend James McLachlan, called to my notice by a blog entry from Robert Boylan:   The Uncontrolling Love of God: A Mormon Approach    

    What if it weren’t mountain ranges or rivers or politicians wielding an occasionally arbitrary straightedge that created the shapes and outlines of the 48 contiguous United States, but economic relationships?  Our political map might look considerably different:   http://www.realclearscience.com/quick_and_clear_science/2017/01/27/what_if_us_states_were_shaped_according_to_economics.html    

    “Love is a great beautifier.” (Louisa May Alcott, 1832-1888)        

    The comments that typically follow my articles in the Deseret News can sometimes be amusing.  There’s a small group of people, mostly critics, who write in every single week.  And it really doesn’t matter what I say  They never like it.  They never will like it.   In response to today’s column, somebody from St. George, Utah, who calls himself (or herself) “Red Corvette” wrote as follows:   “Dr. Peterson is a continual source of amusement with his pseudo-analytic... Read more

    http://www.cnn.com/2017/01/26/politics/trump-oil-isis-iraq/index.html   I’m deeply uncomfortable with President Trump’s notion that we should have seized Iraq’s oil and his hint that we might still find an opportunity to do so.   Leaving aside the ethical issues, such a practice would make us look like a nation of pirates, because we would be acting piratically, and would seem to confirm accusations that we really don’t care about freedom and justice but are simply greedy and rapacious colonialists.  We would be... Read more

    The question of determining a continent’s precise center is somewhat more difficult than one might assume at first glance.  But we can take comfort in the fact that, this being the United States of America, there’s a possibility of litigation!   https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/25/science/north-america-geographical-center-north-dakota.html   Surprisingly, neither Manhattan nor Hollywood appears to be in the running for the title.    

    From the indispensable Jeff Lindsay:   http://mormanity.blogspot.com/2017/01/the-christian-watchman-and-its.html    

    The latest installment of my weekly Deseret News column is up:   http://www.deseretnews.com/article/865671841/Why-are-there-two-sets-of-official-Book-of-Mormon-witnesses.html    

    There are worse crimes than burning books.  One of them is not reading them.  Ray Bradbury (1920-2012)