“The Destruction of the Nauvoo Expositor in Historical Context”

For any who are in the vicinity of Houston, Texas, or who may soon be in the vicinity of Houston, Texas:  I’ll be giving a fireside tomorrow night (Saturday, 9 September 2023) at the Friendswood stake center, beginning at 6:00 PM.  The title of the talk is “Six Days in August: The Twelve’s Rise to Leadership.”  Please feel free to drop in.  If nothing else, there will be air conditioning.

I believe that the address of the stake center is 505 Deseret Drive, in Friendswood.  But I could be mistaken.

My wife and I drove down to look around Galveston earlier today.  The traffic on the southbound highway wasn’t terribly heavy; it seems that the locals may be waiting until tomorrow to flee from my fireside.  (Precisely the same kind of casual and irresponsible behavior, I suspect, that frustrates FEMA and local first-responders in advance of hurricanes and other easily-predicted disasters.)

This evening, we met with our hosts, members of their family, and several local ecclesiastical leaders for a really good dinner at Perry & Son’s Market & Grille, here in Friendswood.  The food was excellent.  The conversation was even better.  My wife and I have known multiple generations of the extended family for forty-five years.  I first met the patriarch and matriarch of the clan, both now long departed, when I became a member of the Latter-day Saint branch in Jerusalem in January 1978.  Then, when I married and we moved to Egypt, other members of the clan were the leaders of the branch there in Cairo.  (See “Arnold H. Green (1940-2019).”)  One of the family is the only Army general I know who loves Jane Austen and who can summon up an Austen quotation for just about any occasion.  (Of course, he’s the only Army general I know, period.)  Much later, before I knew that he was a member of the family, another one served very ably as my teaching assistant at BYU.  (He and his wife were there tonight.  About him, see “Koloa Ha’afuluhao Wolfgramm Becomes First Pacific Islander to Graduate Yale Law School.”)  It’s one of the most remarkable families I know.

In the meanwhile, this new article for Interpreter: A Journal of Latter-day Saint Faith and Scholarship has gone up on the website of the Interpreter Foundation:

“Turning Type into Pi: The Destruction of the Nauvoo Expositor in Historical Context,” written by Craig L. Foster

Abstract: The destruction of the Nauvoo Expositor has been portrayed as an event that stands out as a unique act where Joseph Smith and the Nauvoo City Council suppressed free speech. However, rather than being an anomaly, the destruction of the Nauvoo Expositor was historically and socially reflective of society in a volatile period in American history during which time several presses were destroyed and even editors attacked and killed.

And this expository summary of the article has also appeared on the Interpreter Foundation’s website:

“Interpreting Interpreter: Expositor-Based Exposition,” written by Kyler Rasmussen

Incidentally, if there are any here who participate on the “Preserve Our Cody Neighborhoods” Facebook page, it would be helpful to me and to at least two of the participants there (Sarah Russell and Christie Christopherson) if you could inform them that I am not, in fact, the poster calling himself or herself Veritas Rerum (nor do I have any idea who Veritas Rerum might be) and that I haven’t posted a comment there on POCN in at least two or three weeks.

I’m not permitted to do so.  Until sometime this morning or last night, I retained the ability to post “Wow” emojis, from one of my three Facebook accounts.  I used it, typically, to highlight comments there that, instead of raising potentially legitimate issues such lighting, zoning, traffic, and steeple height, expressed either overt or implicit hostility to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (in the latter case, for example, by declaring that no temple, no matter its design or specific site, should ever be permitted in Cody at all).  But the good folks at POCN have closed that dangerous loophole.  My ability to post emojis has now been removed, and I cannot now access POCN at all.  Not to disabuse Christie Christopherson and Sarah Russell of their misplaced irritation, and not even to read the comments there.

All of which, I’m informed by the experts on the Peterson Obsession Board, has stoked my continual incandescent rage to an even higher level.

I recently called your attention to a curious article in the New York Times:  “An Unexpected Hotbed of Y.A. Authors: Utah: A tight-knit community of young-adult writers who belong to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has yielded smashes like “Twilight.” But religious doctrine can clash with creative freedoms”

Here is a response to that article by an Orthodox Christian journalist:  “Podcast: Attention Gray Lady folks! Latter-day Saints are not the only skilled fantasy scribes”

I believe that this item comes from the Christopher Hitchens Memorial “How Religion Poisons Everything” File™:  “Among the Elite.”

A new ranking by The Wall Street Journal counts BYU as one of the 2024 Best Colleges in America alongside Princeton, MIT, Yale, Stanford and Harvard. Additionally, BYU had the top score, out of 400 schools considered, when it came to how much students love their experience at BYU.