Do any of the rest of you feel this way?  I surely do:   http://www.nationalreview.com/article/418830/sea-alien-culture-where-normal-defined-deviant-quin-hillyer   Passing by some buildings as the University of Göttingen yesterday, we saw a great many banners expressing leftist and, in some cases, very radical leftist views.  We didn’t see a single one expressing a dissenting opinion.   That didn’t surprise me a whole lot, really.   But I was struck by one banner, that allowed three boxes, of which, apparently, readers were... Read more

    Some of my critics love to portray me as hostile to science.  I read fairly often on the web that I distrust scientists and regard science itself as satanic.  I’ve learned from the web, moreover, that I’m a young-earth creationist — something that I could never have discovered about myself without the help of others.   It’s all bunk, of course.  I arrived at the university out of high school as a mathematics major, with interests in cosmology... Read more

    Every day we should hear at least one little song, read one good poem, see one exquisite picture, and, if possible, speak a few sensible words.  (Johann Wolfgang von Goethe)   Posted from Göttingen, Germany     Read more

    A sociologist at the University of Maryland demonstrates, briefly, how absurdly easy it is to falsify social science data, or to make it up out of thin air — whatever one’s motives might be, whether ideological or for personal advancement and glory:   https://familyinequality.wordpress.com/2015/05/25/stop-me-before-i-fake-again/   The late John Boswell, a prolific historian who died, far too young, of complications from AIDS back on Christmas Eve in 1994, offers a cautionary example.  His attempts to legitimate same-sex “marriage” on... Read more

    I don’t know whether any of you saw this two months ago, or, if you did, whether you remember it.  But it’s an instructive incident:   http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/416250/cut-his-mic-kathryn-jean-lopez   By itself, it signifies little or nothing.  But it’s scarcely alone.   Posted from Göttingen, Germany     Read more

    We drove up this morning from Frankfurt to the university town of Göttingen, in Lower Saxony.   I haven’t been here in, I believe, forty two years.  (Yes, I’m that old.)   We walked around the Innenstadt, the inner city (within the old walls).  It was very pleasant, because today was a holiday, “das Fronleichnamsfest” (Latin: Sollemnitas Sanctissimi Corporis et Sanguinis Christi or, even, Corpus Christi), which is a Catholic festival celebrating the “real presence” of the body and blood of... Read more

    This is fun.  A little bit of Church history that might otherwise have been and remained lost.   http://ldsmag.com/the-lost-sermon-of-joseph-smith/   Keep a journal.   And, if there are any old journals in your possession or your family’s possession, please consider giving at least a copy to the Church History Department library, or the library at BYU, or some such thing.  Don’t let them be destroyed.  Don’t count on descendants preserving them who might not care about them.  Please... Read more

    I’ve noticed a current television commercial for Ram trucks, about “roots” and “wings.”  So, can country music actually be called “classical music”?   There are only two lasting bequests we can hope to give our children. One of these is roots, the other, wings.  (Johann Wolfgang von Goethe)   Posted from Göttingen, Germany Read more

    I have mixed feelings about whether or not the measures that this article mentions will really do much good:   http://www.moultrieobserver.com/news/local_news/drift-causes-some-churches-to-rethink-mission/article_99c932fe-0002-11e5-91ad-6b856b4c4f2c.html   And I think it significant that, while the socially and theologically liberal Protestant mainstream has seen precipitous decline in recent years, evangelical churches haven’t.   Posted from Atlanta, Georgia     Read more

    Perhaps you’re already aware of it, but perhaps you’re not.   Every April and every October, the Church produces an informative (and, to my taste, quite enjoyable) “World Report”:   http://www.mormonnewsroom.org/article/world-report   Several different viewing options are available there on the page.   Posted from Atlanta, Georgia     Read more