Pretty spectacular:   http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/12/science/shipwrecks-black-sea-archaeology.html   Really well preserved old ships — like Stockholm’s Vasa and the Viking ships of Oslo (both of which my wife and I visited this past summer) — are highly instructive but also quite rare.   I would love to see some of these brought to the surface, if that’s at all practical.     Read more

    Much was written before the 2016 presidential election about Mormon resistance to Mr. Donald J. Trump and to Trumpism, and a fair amount has been written afterward — some of it quite critical of the Latter-day Saints, who are said (since Utah eventually went quite solidly for Mr. Trump) to have proven themselves “hypocrites,” to have “sold out,” to have endorsed racism and misogyny and religious bigotry, and so forth.   As some may have noticed, I opposed... Read more

    It’s exciting to imagine what might be accomplished by the mobilization of committed Latter-day Saints worldwide in this effort:   http://www.deseretnews.com/article/865666890/Light-the-World-2-Church-announces-2016-Christmas-initiative.html?pg=all     Read more

    In a National Review article about anti-Trump demonstrations and riots, Kevin Williamson writes a funny little passage regarding Mormons:   http://www.nationalreview.com/article/442155/donald-trump-executive-power-left-loves-constitutional-checks-balances-again   Thanks to Ed Snow, a former Maxwell Institute colleague and a friend since Swiss Mission days, for bringing Williamson’s joke to my attention.   (Incidentally, if you want to know what the people in the photo above are probably singing, you can listen to it here.)     Read more

    https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2016/12/the-case-against-cats/505838/     Read more

    “No man, for any considerable period, can wear one face to himself and another to the multitude, without finally getting bewildered as to which may be the true.” Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804-1864)     Read more

    I love to hear about activities such as this one, and I love the opening line written by the invaluable Jeff Lindsay:  “When Mormon women party in Shanghai, the world becomes a better place.”   http://mormanity.blogspot.com/2016/11/how-mormon-women-party-in-shanghai.html     Read more

    The headline is a tad sensationalistic, but this is nonetheless an interesting find:   http://www.israeltoday.co.il/NewsItem/tabid/178/nid/30345/Default.aspx?topic=article_title   Just about everything connected with Jerusalem continues to be politically controversial, of course, as the article’s reference to a recent UNESCO resolution illustrates.     Read more

    “I believe in God, who can respond to prayers, to whom we can give trust and without whom life on this earth would be without meaning (a tale told by an idiot). I believe that God has revealed Himself to us in many ways and through many men and women, and that for us here in the West the clearest revelation is through Jesus and those that have followed him.” Nevill Francis Mott (1905-1996)     Read more

    Another good piece — one of very many — from Book of Mormon Central:   https://knowhy.bookofmormoncentral.org/content/why-did-the-lamanites-sacrifice-women-and-children-to-idols     Read more