I was disappointed when Utah failed to make a stronger statement on election day — though the statement may actually have been stronger than some have realized; see this — but I was deeply saddened to see the headline of an article in the Salt Lake Tribune:   http://www.sltrib.com/news/4565608-155/worried-utah-muslims-on-trumps-win   I understand the concerns of many of Utah’s Muslims.  As the saying goes (but I really mean it), I feel their pain.  Donald Trump’s statements about Islam and minorities... Read more

    This is really sad news:   http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/leonard-cohen-dead-at-82-w449792   I’ve been a big Leonard Cohen fan since I was a teenager in late 1960s California.   I came to know him first through his 1967 album Songs of Leonard Cohen.   Here are two of the Cohen songs that I first learned (and often played myself):   “Suzanne”   “Hey, That’s No Way to Say Goodbye”   This is another favorite from that 1967 album:   “So Long Marianne”   And... Read more

    Understandably, Americans like to travel to see Maya ruins in Mexico and the Acropolis of Athens and the pyramids of Egypt and other such archaeological sites.   Many aren’t aware of a really important site on the Illinois side of the Mississippi River, just outside of St. Louis.  Here’s a new discovery there:   http://www.realclearlife.com/2016/11/10/researchers-rewrite-history-of-cahokia-with-new-beaded-burial-findings/     Read more

    Knowledge can be communicated, but not wisdom. One can find it, live it, be fortified by it, do wonders through it, but one cannot communicate and teach it. Hermann Hesse (1877-1962)     Read more

    Thanks to Andrew Sargent for bringing this interesting item to my attention:   https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/global-opinions/wp/2016/11/10/im-a-muslim-a-woman-and-an-immigrant-i-voted-for-trump/   As some readers of my blog may have noticed, I myself didn’t support Donald Trump for the presidency.   But I also didn’t support Hillary Clinton, and I didn’t support her for many of the very reasons cited in this article by Asra Nomani.   I understand.  I get it.     Read more

    Maybe.   http://www.sciencealert.com/this-5-000-year-old-rock-could-be-one-of-the-world-s-earliest-maps     Read more

    http://www.sltrib.com/home/4568475-155/rolly-herberts-former-spokeswoman-and-now   I left the Republican Party on the night that Donald Trump accepted its presidential nomination.  I had thought that I would return.  Now, though, since he’s won the presidency, I’m not sure what I’ll do.     Read more

    There is genuine concern:   http://www.cnn.com/2016/11/09/politics/muslims-trump-reaction/index.html   I hope that it won’t prove to be justified.   Legitimate security issues exist, and non-Muslims’ worries aren’t without a basis in fact.   But here’s a public pledge:  I will publicly oppose actual religious bigotry anywhere I see it.  And if measures are proposed or actions undertaken that I judge to violate constitutional guarantees of religious freedom, that are unjust or oppressive, or that seem to reflect intolerance and hate,... Read more

    As they’ve done every election cycle for as long as I can recall, the First Presidency and the Twelve have issued a statement congratulating the newly elected president of the United States and calling upon American members of the Church to pray for him, his associates, and other public officials:   http://www.mormonnewsroom.org/article/first-presidency-quorum-of-twelve-congratulate-u-s-president-elect   Please note that this is neither a partisan statement nor an endorsement.  (Some have suggested otherwise.  Falsely.)     Read more

    “While . . . media attention goes to the strident atheists who claim religion is foolish superstition, and to the equally clamorous religious creationists who deny the clear evidence for cosmic and biological evolution, a majority of the people I know have no difficulty accepting scientific knowledge and holding to religious faith.” “Why do I believe in God? As a physicist, I look at nature from a particular perspective. I see an orderly, beautiful universe in which nearly... Read more