*** Here’s a New Year’s article that I wrote for Meridian Magazine: “A Lesson from Two Great Leaders on Beginning Again When It Feels Like You’ve Failed” Here, perhaps relevant to my article above, are recent stories about a pair of Latter-day Saints that you might enjoy: “BYU’s Mikayla Colohan Named Country’s Top College Soccer Player Following Team’s ‘Magical’ Season” “Scott O’Neil’s next mountain: The NBA executive recently stepped away from the highest echelons... Read more
*** A few of you may remember that there was once an extremely unpleasant man who went by the name of Keith Olbermann. He was, at various times, a sports commentator and then a rather negligible political commentator and then a sports commentator. Well, it seems — at least according to Bethany Mandel and some other journalists — that Herr Olbermann is still (more or less) alive out there somewhere: “Perspective: Keith Olbermann’s attack on Mitt... Read more
*** Because of a grave defect in prudence and common sense, I’m now going to return to the subject of the late Latter-day Saint Senator and Senate majority leader Harry Reid (D-NV). (See my prior post here.) This will provide yet another opportunity for intemperate haters to comment. However, although I’m a generous and forgiving host, I will not tolerate very much of their vitriol. (I’ll partially explain why, below.) First of all, here is a... Read more
*** I think I had only one significant encounter with him. (It occurred at the event at the Embassy of the Royal Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan that is pictured above.) I disagreed quite comprehensively with his more striking policy positions and, on more than one occasion, found some of his actions quite morally indefensible. His hyperpartisanship — notably including his vocal disrespect for President George W. Bush and his baseless and unrepented slander about presidential candidate... Read more
*** Three new pieces were posted today on the website of the Interpreter Foundation: Come, Follow Me — Old Testament Study and Teaching Helps Lesson 2, January 3-January 9: Genesis 1-2; Moses 2-3; Abraham 4-5 — “In the Beginning God Created the Heaven and the Earth” This is yet another brief but helpful contribution from Jonn Claybaugh: Audio Roundtable: Come, Follow Me Old Testament Lesson 2 “In the Beginning God Created the Heaven and the Earth”... Read more
*** I too found his atheistic reductionism dismal. But he was apparently a very fine scientist and he was certainly an interesting writer who helped us to understand the rich complexity of nature, and he died on the day after Christmas: “The Miracle of Bugs: Through his study of the lowly ant, the late biologist Edward O. Wilson highlighted the complexity and wonders of life.” Speaking of the amazing variety and, if you will, the... Read more
*** I have, to this point, made no comment here (or anywhere else, really, public or private) about the very well publicized announcement by Mr. Jeff T. Green that he is formalizing his decade-long apostasy from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints by demanding that his name be removed from its records. First of all, I think it simply a very sad story. Beyond that, I have no particular interest in Mr. Green — I... Read more
*** Now that Christmas is securely behind us, I can share a cynical poem by an American academic, poet, and translator about the extreme commercialism that, in some cases, genuinely does mar the holiday: The Corporate Christmas Carol by Joseph S. Salemi God rest ye merry businessmen, Start markups on your trash! Remember that this holiday Is when you rake in cash! It saves you from those creditors You owe from that last crash… Oh, tidings of... Read more
I was thinking, this morning, about the famous passage at Moses 1:39 that says For behold, this is my work and my glory—to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man. It’s often quoted, and I think with good reason. Many years ago, with my late friend Huston Smith, the eminent comparative religionist, I co-wrote an article on “The Purpose of Earth Life (Comparative Perspective)” for Macmillan’s Encyclopedia of Mormonism. One of the paragraphs... Read more
*** I published this column in the Deseret News for Christmas 2012. The reference to Newtown, Connecticut, was inspired — if that’s the right word for it — by the terrible massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, which had just occurred on 14 December of that year: His first wife, Mary, died after a miscarriage. His second wife, Fanny, died in a freak household fire. Trying to save her, he himself was burned so... Read more
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