I’m grateful to Matthew Wheeler for calling two items to my attention that I think some of you will find of interest, as well. If you can, go the Facebook page of “Abu Ubaidah (Faraz Sabeel Travels).” Once you’re there, scroll down to his entry for 10:45 AM on 25 March 2020, which begins “Jewish shop keeper in Jerusalem playing Quran, when asked why said this is Gods word it will help us during this Coranavirus.” ... Read more
“The coronavirus is pushing charities to their limit. Should Congress do more to help?: Some policy experts argue the $2 trillion stimulus package doesn’t do enough for social service organizations” “Utah unemployment claims skyrocket as coronavirus containment forces massive layoffs” “Salt Lake City mayor wants state to issue stay-at-home directive — or she will: Not everyone supports idea because of economic pressures” “Harvard researchers: Social distancing during COVID-19 may have to be turned on and off like... Read more
Stanford Carmack contributed this week’s new article in Interpreter: A Journal of Latter-day Saint Faith and Scholarship, the constantly growing flagship publication of the Interpreter Foundation: “Pitfalls of the Ngram Viewer” Abstract: Google’s Ngram Viewer often gives a distorted view of the popularity of cultural/religious phrases during the early 19th century and before. Other larger textual sources can provide a truer picture of relevant usage patterns of various content-rich phrases that occur in the Book of Mormon. Such an approach... Read more
I’m back to reading Bruce Rosenblum and Fred Kuttner, Quantum Enigma: Physics Encounters Consciousness, 2d ed. (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2011). At the time they wrote the book, both Rosenblum and Kuttner were members of the physics faculty at the University of California at Santa Cruz. In this passage, the now late Professor Rosenblum, the senior of the two, recalls his experience as a much younger man who was studying at Columbia University in... Read more
To be honest, I’m not sure that I see why there should be such a category as “hate crimes.” Perhaps somebody can explain the rationale to me in a way that I’ll find persuasive, but it seems to me that deliberate violent crimes are deliberate violent crimes, however motivated. Assault is assault, and it should be severely punished whether the victim is an Arab-American, or gay, or Jewish, or Muslim, or even a bland and ordinary (and, therefore,... Read more
New, from Dr. Hales Swift and the Interpreter Foundation: “A Video Supplement for Come, Follow Me Book of Mormon Lesson 12: The Lord Labors with Us (Jacob 5-7)” *** Yesterday, I posted a blog entry (“Does This Thursday Mark the 200th Anniversary of the First Vision?”) in which I called attention to an intriguing argument and to an interesting 35-minute video that lays it out. According to the two researchers who figure in the documentary film, the... Read more
In a bid to continue helping you with your Christopher Hitchens Memorial “How Religion Poisons Everything” Files even during this time of plague — we do take-out and home delivery! — I offer you this item, which provides further information on how the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is responding to the coronavirus: “Church parking lots in Utah could be used as COVID-19 testing sites if needed” And here’s an extra item, for those... Read more
Several times previously here, I’ve mentioned an independently produced film that runs just slightly less than 35 minutes in length, and encouraged people to watch it. It’s really relevant now: “How Lovely Was the Morning” The documentary describes the work of two researchers who independently decided that Joseph Smith’s First Vision most likely took place on the morning of Sunday, 26 March 1820. If they are correct, the two-hundredth anniversary of the First Vision falls this very... Read more
A metaphor for the COVID-19 pandemic and our response to it occurred to me last night, and I want to try it out here, to test drive it in order to see how it works. Feedback is welcome. Many, many years ago, I read an article by the late NASA astronomer and space scientist Robert Jastrow, in which he argued that thermonuclear weapons were essentially obsolete, or soon would be. I’ve never forgotten it. I’m not taking... Read more
For relaxation last night, and to get away from the never ending bad news about COVID-19, my wife and I watched several episodes of an excellent and well-produced 24-part “Great Courses” lecture series on The Black Death: The World’s Most Devastating Plague, by Professor Dorsey Armstrong of Purdue University. We found it for free on our cable television, on demand. This is probably a temporary offer. I highly recommend the lecture series. Fascinating. *** In the... Read more
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