Here are some fascinating photographs of the “Great Red Spot” on Jupiter, an enormous, long-lived, and rather mysterious thing that has changed considerably since Earthlings first began to look at it:   https://www.forbes.com/sites/startswithabang/2017/07/10/jupiters-great-red-spot-gets-its-first-ever-close-up-today/#7d7d42324abe     Read more

    Making the Muslims of a small Texas town real people . . .   https://www.buzzfeed.com/hannahallam/muslim-community-victoria-texas-mosque-arson-aftermath?utm_term=.qvA45Rbw1#.yiwWJpnwo     Read more

    I firmly believe in the power of non-print media (perhaps especially movies) to teach the Gospel and build testimonies, and I’m hopeful that these films will be well done and that they’ll have a substantial impact for good:   LDS Newsroom:  “Filming Begins on New Book of Mormon Videos”   Salt Lake Tribune:  “In the Utah heat, LDS Church is bringing Book of Mormon scenes to life — in video series”     Read more

    “We know that God is everywhere; but certainly we feel His presence most when His works are on the grandest scale spread before us; and it is in the unclouded night-sky, where His worlds wheel their silent course, that we read clearest His infinitude, His omnipotence, His omnipresence.”  Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre     Read more

    I’m not quite sure why, but, within the past two or three days, several friends have called this six-minute 2009 video to my attention:     I do think it’s interesting, and I suspect that I would find her book interesting, too.     Read more

    New from Book of Mormon Central:   https://knowhy.bookofmormoncentral.org/content/what-counts-as-chiasmus   There will be an unusual number of chiasmus-related items over the next few weeks, in conjunction with the “Chiasmus Jubilee” and conference scheduled for mid-August:   https://bookofmormoncentral.org/events/chiasmus-day-2017   This one has already appeared:   “How Much Could Joseph Smith Have Known about Chiasmus in 1829?”     Read more

    This may, of course, result simply from discomfort with Islam:   https://www.buzzfeed.com/hannahallam/forgetting-muhammad-ali-the-muslim?utm_term=.dreQqB6rn#.rkBY8n7Ry   But it’s notably congruent with a broader trend to eliminate or downplay the role of religion elsewhere.     Read more

    An interesting short treatment of a symbol that appears in other temples, as well:   http://www.ldsliving.com/Why-This-Symbol-Appears-10-000-Times-in-the-San-Diego-Temple/s/79150?utm_source=Facebook&utm_medium=Social&utm_campaign=mormonsarecool   Thanks to Helen Condon for calling my attention to it.     Read more

    https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2017/06/16/born-way-many-lgbt-community-its-way-more-complex/395035001/   Well whaddya know?   It turns out that, typically speaking, homosexuality isn’t merely something that happens to people (although, in some cases, it may be largely that), and that behaving as a homosexual person (just like behaving as a heterosexual person) entails choices.  That life as a homosexual isn’t simply a matter of inborn drives but, inevitably also, of morally significant decisions.  And that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, like many other religious... Read more