I published the article below on 23 March 2017 in the Deseret News. With President Russell M. Nelson’s designation of 2020 as a bicentennial year commemorating the dawn of the Restoration, I thought that some might perhaps find it of interest: Some years ago, two Latter-day Saint writers arrived separately at the conclusion that Joseph Smith’s First Vision probably occurred on Sunday, March 26, 1820. (See “Oh, How Lovely Was the Morning: Sun 26 Mar 1820?” ) In other... Read more
Given my own recent involvement in Latter-day Saint filmmaking, I found this New York Times article interesting. You may, as well: “Lights. Camera. Prayer. A Mini-Hollywood Grows in Utah. Movies made by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints are an important part of a film and TV ecosystem in northern Utah. And there’s not an R-rating in sight.” As I’ve mentioned here, some of the scenes for the Interpreter Foundation’s Witnesses film project were... Read more
My wife and I attended a brilliantly acted performance of Arthur Miller’s powerful play The Price in the Anes Studio Theater in Cedar City on Saturday afternoon. (Saturday was the closing day of the 2019 season of the Utah Shakespeare Festival. Otherwise, I would strongly recommend that you drop what you’re doing and see the play.) The Price is a wrenching portrayal of a wounded family – basically of two estranged brothers whose lives have gone very different directions... Read more
I think that I’ll call attention one more time to the fact that I’ll be speaking this weekend, on Sunday, 13 October 2019, in Cedar City, Utah. The subject of my remarks will be “Idle Tales”? The Witness of Women I’m told that the fireside will begin at 7 PM on Sunday evening, at the chapel located at 800 South Laurie Lane (800 South and Westview Road). When this event was set up, the Cedar City... Read more
This is the promised second passage that struck me from one of the articles to which I linked in my prior blog post “Lessons from scorching hot weirdo-planets”: “[A]ll voices are not equal. The views of people who are not qualified in the particular area of research in question carry less weight than those of people who are. Like many serious journalism platforms, BBC News, where I work, has a strict policy of balance and impartiality. In the... Read more
My wife and I attended a session this evening in the St. George Utah Temple. It was our last opportunity to do so before the temple closes on 4 November 2019 for massive renovations that will require the better part of three years. The result of those renovations will be not only a much improved building (including seismic upgrades) but a building that will be returned to something more like the aesthetic vision of those who originally created... Read more
I was saddened to learn today of the death of Elder James O. Mason, who served in the Second Quorum of the Seventy as a General Authority of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints from 1994 until 2000 and then as president of the Bountiful Utah Temple from 2000 until 2003. I didn’t know him well, but I did have some contact with him and found him quite impressive. In his professional life, Elder Mason earned... Read more
I believe that I’ve already expressed my displeasure here with the term right-wing as it’s used in articles such as that below. I can’t see that Germany’s National Socialism, for example, really had more in common with my quasi-libertarian economic and other positions than it did with the Soviet Union’s version of Marxist socialism under Stalin. Nor do my political opinions contain even the slightest commitment to anti-Semitism. Quite the contrary, indeed, as, given my father’s history on... Read more
It’s inexpressibly sad that such instructions even need to be given. But they do: “Safety in Chapels Is the Responsibility of Every Latter-day Saint: Update to security guidelines is a response to ‘changing conditions around the world’” *** But here’s a much, much more cheerful topic: “Public Invited to Tour the Asunción Paraguay Temple” Asunción Paraguay Temple: Video Presentations *** From The Blue & Gray Press, the student newspaper at the University of... Read more
A few instructive links on Mr. Donald J. Trump’s catastrophic new policy in Syria: “Turkey’s military assault in Syria continues, civilian casualties on the rise: As Turkey’s military assault in Syria continues the number of casualties are steadily rising.” “Reporter’s Notebook: In Syria, Fox News was embedded with Kurdish forces battling ISIS” (The three-minute video at the link above is worth watching.) “Graham, Van Hollen Announce Bipartisan Deal on Sanctions against Turkey” “Turkey-Syria payback:... Read more
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