I expect that some critics will eagerly seize this award — what don’t they seize? — as yet another weapon with which to bludgeon Brigham Young University and, more importantly, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, which sponsors the University.   But the fact is that there was a problem — an unintended and inadvertent problem, I’m absolutely certain, at the intersection of two values or priorities — and that this reporting called attention to the problem... Read more

    Some worthwhile thoughts from a thoughtful student of the Book of Mormon:   http://www.studioetquoquefide.com/2017/04/words-of-wisdom-from-biblical-scholar.html     Read more

    The situation for Christians in the Middle East has been growing worse for several decades now:   https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2017/04/09/coptic-christians-us-mourn-victims-egypt-bombings/100258226/   If you watch the accompanying film, though — which offers no commentary in either Arabic or English — please note that the woman shown in a pinkish head scarf (plainly a Muslim) is leading the people around her in a chant of Laa’! laa’! l-il irhaab!  (“No!  No!  To terrorism!”).     Read more

    This is actually more than a little bit disquieting:   https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/08/opinion/sunday/the-utter-uselessness-of-job-interviews.html?_r=1     Read more

    I announced a while back that I’m personally undertaking a bit of reading and thinking and even reporting about the rise of the religious “Nones,” the dropping rate of LDS convert baptisms, and associated issues.   I explained that I’ll be talking about it in a sporadic sort of way.  That’s partly because I have a lot of other things on my plate (including a job) and because, in the near term, anyway, I’m going to be traveling quite... Read more

    Thanks to Cassandra Hedelius for alerting me to this troubling article:   “Obergefell’s Toxic Judicial Legacy”   The Founders never intended for us to live under the tyranny of an essentially unrestrained judiciary.  But that seems to be the direction in which we’re headed — one in which, to some substantial degree, a small group of unelected life-time appointees direct our lives based upon their preferences, whims, ideological allegiances, and hobbies rather than upon the law.     Read more

    Many of us hoped, at one point, that Mitt Romney would be the first Mormon head of state in the history of the world.   Wouldn’t it be fantastic, though, if the first Mormon head of state turned out to be the president of Kenya?   http://www.deseretnews.com/article/865677450/Utah-Mormon-running-for-president-of-Kenya.html     Read more

    Just in time, before Palm Sunday is altogether over.   Virginia Brown kindly reminds me of this wonderful little poem:   THE DONKEY BY G. K. CHESTERTON When fishes flew and forests walked  And figs grew upon thorn,  Some moment when the moon was blood  Then surely I was born. With monstrous head and sickening cry  And ears like errant wings,  The devil’s walking parody  On all four-footed things. The tattered outlaw of the earth,  Of ancient crooked... Read more

    I don’t want this to slip from your minds:   http://www.mormoninterpreter.com/celebrating-the-new-edition-of-royal-skousens-analysis-of-textual-variants/     Read more

    A lesser known facet of one of the great figures in the history of jazz:   https://www.firstthings.com/article/2017/04/duke-ellingtons-faith     Read more