If you’re interested in going to Israel and/or Egypt with me next May, go to the “Cruise Lady” website, and, under “Headliners,” choose my name.   Of course, if you want to do so, you can go with somebody else instead, or at another time.   On another front, I’m disappointed:  I was expecting to go to Iran in late August, to participate in a Christian/Shi‘ite dialogue.  Unfortunately, there are some politics in the region — you may... Read more

    Professional football has been catching a huge amount of flak in recent years, and this story doesn’t help:   http://www.cnn.com/2017/07/25/health/cte-nfl-players-brains-study/index.html   I’m not a particularly passionate football fan.  If a game is on television, I’ll watch it and even get into it.  As much as the next guy.  I vastly prefer it to game shows and reality TV, but then I don’t watch them, either.   However, I didn’t play high school football, and I don’t go out of... Read more

    Bruce Webster, who brings this to my attention, correctly points out that this isn’t a bad showing for Provo, Orem, and Utah County:   https://wallethub.com/edu/most-and-least-educated-cities/6656/#main-findings   And to think that, according to some exceptionally rabid critics of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, my adopted home state of “Utard” is largely inhabited by “Mor(m)ons.”     Read more

    Something new.   It may seem a small thing, but it’s not:   https://www.lds.org/si/objective/doctrinal-mastery/gospel-sources?lang=eng   Posted from Kaanapali, Maui, Hawaii     Read more

    “I have always imagined that Paradise will be a kind of library.” Jorge Luis Borges (1899-1986)   Of course, I also expect that it will be indescribably beautiful.   On another note, I take considerable satisfaction from the fact that I was once able to meet Jorge Luis Borges, one of the great writers of the twentieth century.   Posted from Kaanapali, Maui, Hawaii     Read more

    This wonderful item was brought to my notice by Faisal Alzamil:   http://theanthrotorian.com/culture/2012/11/29/the-difference-between-complete-and-finished   I’m in utter awe of impromptu wit like this, if it was, as it seems to have been, off the cuff.   Two of my other favorite examples both come out of Great Britain, but, in both cases, from non-Englishmen:   1.   The Irish comedic playwright Richard Brinsley Sheridan (d. 1816; author of, among other things, The Rivals and The School for Scandal)... Read more

    The estimable David French comments on an article in the New York Times that I myself mentioned (“Don’t Believe in God? Maybe You’ll Try U.F.O.s”) a few days ago:   http://www.nationalreview.com/article/449789/post-christian-america-superstitious-intolerant-reality     Posted from Kaanapali, Maui, Hawaii     Read more

    The redoubtable Jeff Lindsay, a member of the executive board of the Interpreter Foundation, takes issue with an article published in Interpreter: A Journal of Mormon Scripture:   http://mormanity.blogspot.com/2017/07/an-unnecessary-attack-on-faithful-lds.html   There is no hive mind at the Interpreter Foundation.   I’m happy about that.   Posted from Kaanapali, Maui, Hawaii     Read more

    I continue to stand by my opinion that this isn’t actually the worst thing ever written about Muhammad or Islam:   https://www.amazon.com/Muhammad-Prophet-God-Daniel-Peterson-ebook/dp/B001F0RLLA/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1500968025&sr=1-1&keywords=Daniel+Peterson   Posted from Kaanapali, Maui, Hawaii     Read more

    Are you sleeping too well at night?  Have you developed an unfortunate resistance to horror movies?  Do they no longer give you that delicious old thrill?   If so, consider reading this article about some of the world’s supervolcanos:   http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20170724-would-a-supervolcano-eruption-wipe-us-out   Posted from Kaanapali, Maui, Hawaii     Read more