I’m going to be  at 9118 South Redwood Road that evening from 7:00 to 9:00 PM, speaking about “The Beauty, the History, and the Challenge of the Holy Lands.”   For details, go to this site, where, if you care to confirm my story, you can then scroll down to my name.   Be warned that this lecture is sponsored by a commercial venture, that you must reserve a seat in advance, and that a per-person admission price of $8.00 is... Read more

    “But we all suffer. For we all prize and love; and in this present existence of ours, prizing and loving yield suffering. Love in our world is suffering love. Some do not suffer much, though, for they do not love much. Suffering is for the loving. This, said Jesus, is the command of the Holy One: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ In commanding us to love, God invites us to suffer.” Nicholas Wolterstorff, Lament for a... Read more

    I absolutely love this:   http://theweek.com/speedreads/581779/prison-debate-team-victorious-over-harvard-champs   I’m grateful to Doug Ealy for bringing it to my notice.   His sage advice:  Don’t scrimp and struggle to save enough money to send Janie or Johnny to the Ivy League.  Send the little darlings to prison!     Read more

    My most recent offense against reason and good sense has just appeared in the Deseret News:   http://www.deseretnews.com/article/865638546/Perhaps-the-worlds-most-important-living-Christian-philosopher.html     Read more

    Testimonials to the good character of Joseph Smith abound.[1] The Prophet, recalled Jesse N. Smith, was incomparably the most God-like man I ever saw. I know that by nature he was incapable of lying and deceitfulness, possessing the greatest kindness and nobility of character. I felt when in his presence that he could read me through and through. I know he was all that he claimed to be. [2] “My first impression of the Prophet,” recalled Daniel Tyler,... Read more

      This may be indirect circumstantial evidence for the proposition that not all of the sorts of people who turn out for Bernie Sanders rallies are entirely clueless in every area:   http://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2015/10/the-communist-who-foresaw-neutrinos/409474/   But I’m still not completely convinced.     Read more

      It could be true, I suppose.   I don’t altogether rule it out, just yet.   But it strikes me as a suspiciously neat and convenient ideological weapon — perfectly suited to the use of critics of mainstream, orthodox Mormonism as taught by, say, the General Authorities — and it reminds me altogether too much of the claim, once commonly advanced as true, that domestic violence soars on Super Bowl Sundays (or, in England, that it rises dramatically... Read more

    An interesting piece from Thomas Donnelly:   http://www.weeklystandard.com/blogs/he-who-dares-wins_1040242.html     Read more

    https://www.insidescience.org/content/three-chemists-share-nobel-dna-repair/3291   I was pleased to note that one of them is originally from Turkey.     Read more

    “I would rather be exposed to the inconveniences attending too much liberty than those attending too small a degree of it.” “In matters of style, swim with the current; in matters of principle, stand like a rock.”     Read more