“A man is what he thinks about all day long.” Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882)   I would caution, though, that Emerson, a local boy, wasn’t just talking about thoughts that merely “cross our minds.”  He had in view the thoughts that we allow to linger, that we come back to over and over again, that we nourish our daydreams.   We can’t easily control what simply flits across our mental radar screen.  But we can deny lodging in... Read more

    Some braying, in an article in a conservative magazine to which I was a charter subscriber — it has lately wandered too far into Trumpism for my taste — from a jackass named Eric Peters:   Utah Has Just Become Drier     I fully understand that Mormons and Mormonism will be an unavoidable part of any reasonably competent story about Utah laws and alcohol consumption.  But it seems to me that Mr. Peters went beyond that into genuine religious... Read more

    I keep my ear to the ground reasonably consistently in order to hear what the harshest critics of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints have to say.  One recurring theme among them is that the Church doesn’t really care about children — its own or anybody else’s — and that it’s only concerned about making a profit.   I don’t believe that this article is consistent with that claim:   http://www.mormonnewsroom.org/article/latter-day-saints-recognized-national-childrens-alliance   Posted from Richmond, Virginia  ... Read more

    Thanks to my friend Bishop Dr. Ugo Perego for alerting me to this article.  He says that USA Today was writing about his singles ward in Rome:   https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2017/06/08/italy-mormon-temple-rome/102628816/   Posted from Richmond, Virginia     Read more

    Responses to this issue differ, even among faithful and committed Latter-day Saints:   http://www.deseretnews.com/article/865681441/Elite-high-school-quarterback-Tanner-McKee-sits-out-of-Sunday-play-at-premier-event-citing-LDS.html   What do you think?   And, please, no personal criticisms of Tanner McKee and no sneering at his beliefs.   Posted from Richmond, Virginia     Read more

    Several years ago, I read a couple of books arguing scientifically for the uniqueness of our home world.  One was titled Rare Earth.  The other bore the title Privileged Planet.   Despite the recent discovery of a spate of exoplanets, this article seems to suggest that there’s no pressing reason, yet, to consider those titles overstated:   Even Calm Red Dwarf Stars Blast Their Planets with Mini-Flares, Destroying their Habitability Posted from Richmond, Virginia     Read more

    I’m heartened by stories such as this one:   http://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/muslims-and-christians-unite-to-rebuild-mosul-monastery-91235/   Some don’t believe they happen.  Some wish they wouldn’t.  But they do.   Posted from Richmond, Virginia     Read more

    “Some cause happiness wherever they go.  Some cause happiness whenever they go.”   Posted from Richmond, Virginia     Read more

    It is, in fact, rather odd that he’s had nothing to say about this episode or its victims:   http://www.weeklystandard.com/trumps-shameful-silence-on-portland/article/2008345   He’s picked fights with beauty contestants and television comics and the Lord Mayor of London, though.   Posted from Richmond, Virginia     Read more

    I make it a practice of looking in, several times a week, at two largely atheist and very vitriolic apostate-Mormon message boards.  It’s my way, I suppose, of seeing what’s agitating the hive at any given time.  And I won’t deny that there’s an odd social-psychological fascination to it, as well.   On one of them, every single week, there’s inevitably a thread devoted to what the various denizens of that board are drinking, now that they’ve been... Read more