William F. Buckley Jr. first gained fame with a book about his alma mater, a withering critique entitled God and Man at Yale.   In many respects, matters have only become far, far worse since those palmy days after World War Two.   The trend described here ought to concern not only people engaged in the social sciences, but people involved with academia in general — including students and parents of students, of course, but perhaps also government officials,... Read more

    This is an interesting trend:   https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/acts-of-faith/wp/2017/07/05/for-muslims-looking-to-date-the-trump-era-sparks-interest-in-matchmaking-services/?utm_term=.24dd88563571   It’s fascinating to watch as Islam and Muslims adapt institutions and practices that evolved in Muslim-majority societies, where the state often supported them, to life in the secular (or at least religiously neutral and pluralistic) West.   I suppose — I don’t watch such things much, for the obvious reason that I’m already happily, nay blissfully, married — that Latter-day Saint entrepreneurs are creating similar services.  If they’re not, there’s... Read more

    Another hateful and dishonest screed from Hamblin and Peterson:   http://www.deseretnews.com/article/865684394/The-rise-and-fall-of-religious-liberty.html   By the way, I always get a kick out of commenters on these articles who complain, as they frequently do, “But Peterson (or Hamblin and Peterson) didn’t address this, didn’t mention that!”   Every one of these columns, stretching back, if I’m not mistaken, to early 2011 — by now, there’ve got to be something approaching five hundred of them — has come in at a... Read more

    “In faith there is enough light for those who want to believe and enough shadows to blind those who don’t.” Blaise Pascal     Read more

    Thanks to Helen Condon for calling the following item to my attention:   https://mormonhub.com/blog/buzz/18-reasons-mormons-arent-that-great/   Incidentally, the daughter of a long-time friend and colleague is due to have her second baby shortly, in a hospital far removed from “Mormon country.”  In an email sent this evening, my friend writes that   “she was supposed to go online to her hospital site and pre-register for the ‘procedure’.  One of the questions was what her religion was.  The only way to... Read more

    A remark today by one of the speakers at a session of the 2017 Religious Freedom Annual Review of BYU’s International Center for Law and Religion Studies spurs me to bring a situation to your attention that receives very little news coverage in the United States, if indeed it receives any at all:   https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2016–17_Rohingya_persecution_in_Myanmar   I think that many of us, while we’re all too familiar with the horrific violence perpetrated in the name of Islam, are inclined... Read more

    This is the 259th consecutive week — out of the 260.5 weeks of its existence — in which the Interpreter Foundation has published at least one article in its flagship journal, Interpreter: A Journal of Mormon Scripture:   http://www.mormoninterpreter.com/the-book-of-mormon-versus-the-consensus-of-scholars-surprises-from-the-disputed-longer-ending-of-mark-part-2/   We may be seeing the beginning of a trend.   Have a glorious weekend!     Read more

    I’m familiar with my own contribution, of course, but am curious to see what other authors will argue:   https://www.facebook.com/GKBooks/videos/1741500535875169/?hc_ref=PAGES_TIMELINE     Read more

    I was undoubtedly quite clueless as a high school student who was idly considering a career in mathematical physics  and as a (non-science but science-interested) undergraduate, but I’m dazzled by how much we know now about exoplanets as contrasted with what I, at least, knew then.  Here’s an example:   http://www.astronomy.com/news/2017/07/two-classes-of-gas-giants     Read more

    I’ve always resisted the widespread notion that art isn’t really Art, that theater isn’t Theatre, unless it’s been Recognized in New York, and that we must genuflect to Manhattan as our cultural capital.   I savor and, to the limited extent that I can, try to support regional literature, regional art, regional publishers, regional drama, and regional cuisine.   I’ve always gotten a kick out of the response to overweening New York pride from Larry McMurtry, whose writing has won... Read more