This is extraordinarily sad:   http://www.nationalreview.com/article/418704/fall-palmyra-strategic-historical-and-human-loss-tom-rogan   I wish we had a president.     Read more

    A fascinating article about sleuthing, about the problem of scientific fraud, and about one of the (several) limitations of the generally useful process of modern academic/scientific peer review:   http://nautil.us/issue/24/error/how-the-biggest-fabricator-in-science-got-caught     Read more

    If El Greco hadn’t so often devoted himself to religious painting, he might have become a famous and respected artist.   Too bad.   “Of all sad words of tongue or pen, the saddest are these, ‘It might have been.'”  (John Greenleaf Whittier)     Read more

    “The worst moment for the atheist is when he is really thankful, and has nobody to thank.” Dante Gabriel Rossetti   In 2011, I offered some parallel thoughts here:   http://www.deseretnews.com/article/700200662/Gratitude-to-our-God-is-paramount.html?pg=all     Read more

  Thanks to Jeffery Perry for bringing these to my notice.  Otherwise, I don’t know where or to whom to give credit:         Read more

  Missing   $15,000 Reward for information that leads to the finding of Elizabeth Elena Laguna-Salgado     If you know where she is, please contact the Provo Police Department at either 9-1-1 or 801-852-6210.   https://www.facebook.com/elizabethlagunaprovout   http://www.people.com/article/elizabeth-smart-searching-missing-utah-woman   Elizabeth Elena Laguna Salgado is 26 years old, weighs roughly 125 pounds, and stands about 5’4′ tall.   Elizabeth had recently moved to Utah after completing an LDS mission in Mexico.  She was last seen on Thursday, 16 April 2015,... Read more

    Under the above title, on the largely apostate/atheist message board where he’s pseudonymously defamed, caricatured, and misrepresented me for the better part of ten years now, a strange personality that I used to call my “Malevolent Stalker” has responded to my recent article in Interpreter: A Journal of Mormon Scripture, which is titled “Seeing Ourselves Through the Eyes of a Friendly and Thoughtful Evangelical.”   He cites this passage, from near the end of my article:   I... Read more

      I revisit a story on which I’ve already commented this morning:   http://www.nationalreview.com/article/418687/banning-squirt-gun-fights-should-earn-boy-scouts-nanny-state-merit-badge-james-lileks   The wussification of America continues apace.     Read more

    Matthew 17:22-23 Mark 9:30-32 Luke 9:43-45 Compare John 7:1   Both Mark and Luke say that the disciples “didn’t understand” what Jesus was saying, though what Jesus was saying seems unmistakably clear:  He was going to be betrayed and killed, and he would rise again on the third day.   What was difficult to understand about that?   It’s hardly vague.   They obviously understood part of it, at least, because Matthew says that “they were greatly distressed” by what Jesus had... Read more

      My former Maxwell Institute and BYU colleague Dr. Glen M. Cooper, now teaching at Claremont McKenna College, in California, brought this item to my attention.  (He’s cited in it.)   http://www.light2015.org/Home/ScienceStories/1000-Years-of-Arabic-Optics.html#.VV3tTAezS0s.facebook   I share it particularly because I occasionally receive emails, etc. — often fairly unpleasant ones — from people who deny that any good has ever come out of Arab/Islamic civilization.   (The claim is a sad reflection of the inadequacies of history education in the... Read more