There are, as we all know, events that are so seared into our memories that we never forget where we were when they happened.  I’m so very old, for instance, that I can recall hearing about the Beatles’ legendary first appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show on Sunday, 9 February 1964.  I was out on the  Thomas Jefferson Elementary School playground — it was probably Monday, 10 February — and somebody asked me whether I had seen the Beatles.... Read more

    I share with you a few more photographs from the Upper Canada Village shoots for the Interpreter Foundation’s Witnesses film project, interspersed with some other items of very distantly related interest.   As I’ve said, I wish that I could be there in Ontario for the filming.  I really believe in this project, and in the capacity of film to reach and affect audiences.  But duty calls.  (We’ve just started the new academic year here at Brigham Young... Read more

    “The day the dinosaurs died: Asteroid impact site reveals devastation from power of 10 billion A-bombs”   “‘End Times’ explores the catastrophic events that could kill us all: A new book looks at how to prevent asteroid strikes, climate change and other threats”   “Ancient crystal growths in caves reveal seas rose 16 meters in a warmer world: Findings on the Spanish coast of Mallorca hint at how oceans could respond to climate change”   But enough of this planet.... Read more

    Many people in the West quite confidently discuss Muslim attitudes on the basis of no real acquaintance with either the Islamic world or actual Muslims.   So I’m going to recommend a book:   Several years ago, the Gallup organization undertook an enormous, multi-country survey of the Islamic world, the largest ever done.  The results of that survey are reported and discussed in John L. Esposito and Dalia Mogahed, Who Speaks for Islam? What a Billion Muslims Really Think (2007).  The... Read more

      In connection with my MESA 250 class, I’m re-reading Frederick Mathewson Denny, An Introduction to Islam, 4th ed.  (Upper Saddle River, NJ:  Prentice Hall, 2011).  Here’s a passage, drawn from pages 20-21, that impressed me:   In the simplest sense, a prophet is a person who transmits a message from God, about the divine world, to humans. . . .  The conventional understanding is that he or she is a person who can foretell the future.  This... Read more

    The Cruise Lady kindly sponsors our weekly Interpreter Radio Show, and I’ve worked with them for a decade or more, accompanying tours to Israel, Jordan, Egypt, the British Isles, Peru, the Mediterranean, and the Baltic Sea.  I like them.  And, now, the Interpreter Foundation’s executive vice president, my friend Steve Densley, is affiliated with them.   So I think it appropriate here to mention a tour that Steve will be accompanying later this year, from 26 December 2019... Read more

    My wife and I are both serious Anglophiles.  In fact, we occasionally talk about trying to spend some relatively substantial post-retirement time — when I finally do retire — in England or somewhere else in the United Kingdom.  I’ve always been partial to academic centers (or centres) such as Oxford and Cambridge, or perhaps up in Scotland at St. Andrews.  (I’ve had week-long stays in each of the latter two.)   But I’ll admit that I’m having second thoughts.... Read more

    The following two items, and most especially the second of them, tie in nicely with my blog entry from yesterday — Saturday, 7 September 2019 — which was entitled “Belief, Behavior, and Belonging: How Faith is Indispensable in Preventing and Recovering from Substance Abuse”:   “Despair is killing Americans. Here’s how people of faith can help”   “Drug abuse is a main driver behind America’s rising rate of ‘deaths of despair’: A study by the Joint Economic Committee found... Read more

    I believe that I may already have shared this first item.  But my wife has called my attention to it again and, anyway, you may have missed it the first time (if, indeed, there was a first time prior to this time):   “Apostle Thanks State of Kuwait for Formally Recognizing the Church”   ***   I’m grateful to Matthew Wheeler for calling this to my attention:   “Unique Kerala | India’s oldest Jewish woman was under the... Read more