On our first full day in France, we drove from Paris to Normandy.  It’s a bit of a long drive and, alas, we got a late start owing to some trouble with the rental car.  So we had to skip going to Claude Monet’s garden in Giverny.  It’s a favorite spot for my wife, and I’ve never been there.  So both of us were disappointed.  But we did spend a fair amount of time in Rouen, especially visiting... Read more

    On Thursday, while flying from Qatar to France on a very nice Qatar Airlines passenger jet, I watched a 2012 Jordanian film entitled When Monaliza Smiled (لما ضحكت موناليزا‎‎; Lamma Dehket Monaliza).   It’s a light romantic comedy.  Not great, but pleasant.  And very human.  (With subtitles, for those of you who don’t speak Arabic.)   It occurred to me while watching it that many people who fear Muslims and Arabs and the Middle East might feel better if they watched a... Read more

    Once more, for those who think that LDS Church leaders care only for the Church’s bottom line:   http://www.mormonnewsroom.org/article/infographic-lds-charities-clean-water-program   I know, I know.  This won’t be allowed to count.   But that says a great deal about certain rather unhinged critics, and little or nothing about the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.   Posted from Carentan, Normandy, France     Read more

    This is a puzzling phenomenon.  Some have even suggested, at least half seriously, the possibility that an “alien megastructure” is periodically passing between us and the star.   https://arstechnica.com/science/2017/05/tabbys-star-is-dimming-again-and-astronomers-are-excited/   Posted from Carentan, Normandy, France     Read more

        Being where I am right now, and having spent the day the way I have, I’ve unavoidably thought of the prayer that President Franklin D. Roosevelt offered on 6 June 1944.  You can listen to it at this link, and here’s the text:   Prayer on D-Day, June 6, 1944:  “My fellow Americans: Last night, when I spoke with you about the fall of Rome, I knew at that moment that troops of the United States... Read more

    I’ve been watching political developments in Turkey — among the most fascinating places on the planet — with concern and sadness.  And I’ve been under-impressed with the response of the United States to those developments:   http://www.nationalreview.com/article/447768/recep-tayyip-erdogan-turkey-autocratic-regime-america-west-defend-democracy   Posted from Carentan, Normandy, France     Read more

    A new opera for the entertainment and preoccupation of certain critics of Mormonism, entitled “The So-Called Church is Just a Business that Cares Only About Making Profits.”  Here are its complete lyrics, followed by an addendum:   The so-called Church is just a corporation that cares only about making profits.   The so-called Church is just a corporation that cares only about making profits.   The so-called Church is just a corporation that cares only about making profits.   The so-called Church is just a corporation that cares only... Read more

      An interesting short piece by the indefatigable Robert Boylan, with a link for some LDS-related further reading:   http://scripturalmormonism.blogspot.fr/2017/05/the-geocentric-cosmology-of-bible.html   Posted from Carentan, Normandy, France     Read more

    http://www.space.com/36908-dwarf-planet-snow-white-has-a-moon.html   Posted from Carentan, Normandy, France     Read more

    I very much wish that the level of biblical literacy among Latter-day Saints — and in myself — were much higher.  That said, though, we’re apparently still doing better than most American Christians:   http://www.sltrib.com/news/5306163-155/is-the-old-testament-dying-maybe?fullpage=1   That may be rather like being the tallest building in Tooele, or the highest mountain in Kansas.  Still, though, it’s something.   Posted from Carentan, Normandy, France     Read more