Vladimir Putin has completely outmaneuvered our presidential naïf:   http://www.weeklystandard.com/blogs/putin-doctrine-action_1036791.html   And Russia’s longstanding goal of establishing a major warm-water port — a goal that pre-dates the Soviets and was pursued by the czars — is one step closer to realization.   Now that’s change you can believe in!   Posted from Mentor, Ohio     Read more

    Scientifically.   Doctrinally.   Personally, though, I don’t care what they say.  I intend to panic, and to run around screaming loudly and irrationally.   How about you?  Do you have any special plans for tomorrow night?   Posted from Mentor, Ohio     Read more

  We spent an hour or more upstairs in Newel K. Whitney’s store this morning.  Fascinating things have happened there. Presidents John Taylor and George Q. Cannon, Apostles Erastus Snow, Brigham Young, Francis M. Lyman, and Heber J. Grant, and Elders L. John Nuttall and Zebedee Coltrin present. Brother Zebedee Coltrin said: I believe I am the only living man now in the church who was connected with the School of the Prophets when it was organized in 1833, the year before... Read more

    “We are all insane. That is what original sin means. Sin is insanity. It is preferring finite joy to infinite joy, creatures to the Creator, an unhappy, Godless self to a happy, God-filled self. Only God can save us from this disease. That is what the name ‘Jesus’ means: ‘God saves’.” Peter Kreeft   Posted from Mentor, Ohio     Read more

    An interesting little article making a very important point:   https://medium.com/starts-with-a-bang/throwback-thursday-logic-is-no-match-for-science-1d163171219   Galileo’s Aristotelian opponents should have read it.   Posted from Mentor, Ohio     Read more

    It’s reassuring to know that ISIS isn’t the only bad news coming out of the region:   http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/next/body/mers-jordan/   Posted from Mentor, Ohio   Read more

    Professor Arthur Henry King’s trust in Joseph Smith as a human being, which I’ve mentioned in related prior posts here, was essential to his eventual faith in the doctrines and practices restored through the Prophet: “Because Joseph Smith talked about his experiences in the way he did, I was able to believe him, and having that belief, I could then go on to say, ‘This man tells the truth; therefore, I ought to believe other things he tells... Read more

    Symonds Ryder was an apostate from the Church who led the mob that tarred and feathered Joseph Smith on 24 March 1832.   His apostasy is said to have commenced when his name was misspelled in the text of a revelation.  If Doctrine and Covenants 52:37 were truly from the Lord, he angrily declared, his name would have been spelled correctly.   However, his name was spelled variously in census and other records, and spelling was rather fluid in early... Read more

    “When we think Kirtland, we think that heaven was walking here with the people.” Elder M. Russell Ballard   Posted from Mentor, Ohio     Read more

    You may well be wondering to yourself, “How can that clown be off gallivanting around Church history sites right now?  Isn’t he teaching?  Doesn’t he have a job?”   Your questions would be understandable.   I do indeed have a job.  And, yes, we’re well into the Fall 2015 term at BYU.  I’m teaching IHum 242, MESA 250, Arabic 362, and Arabic 490R.   So how am I out here in Ohio?   Excellent question.   I was... Read more