Here’s an interesting and very readable article (with a slightly inflammatory title!) that some will enjoy:   21 Reasons It Doesn’t Matter if The Church is True     Read more

        Read more

    Today, as a special treat, the Interpreter Foundation has published not one but two new articles in its journal.  (Solid proof, I guess that our critics are right:  We’re still dying!)  Here’s the second article:   Reading 1 Nephi With Wisdom     Read more

    If you can muster 37 minutes — even if it’s only in small increments while you’re getting dressed or doing the dishes or shuffling papers — this 1983 talk by Hugh Nibley is an often-funny and frequently challenging classic.  And the introductory remarks, by President Jeffrey R. Holland of Brigham Young University, are also thoroughly enjoyable:       Read more

    More good reading from the Interpreter Foundation:   “Arise from the Dust”: Insights from Dust-Related Themes in the Book of Mormon (Part 2: Enthronement, Resurrection, and Other Ancient Motifs from the “Voice from the Dust”)     Read more

    I was disappointed when Utah failed to make a stronger statement on election day — though the statement may actually have been stronger than some have realized; see this — but I was deeply saddened to see the headline of an article in the Salt Lake Tribune:   http://www.sltrib.com/news/4565608-155/worried-utah-muslims-on-trumps-win   I understand the concerns of many of Utah’s Muslims.  As the saying goes (but I really mean it), I feel their pain.  Donald Trump’s statements about Islam and minorities... Read more

    This is really sad news:   http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/leonard-cohen-dead-at-82-w449792   I’ve been a big Leonard Cohen fan since I was a teenager in late 1960s California.   I came to know him first through his 1967 album Songs of Leonard Cohen.   Here are two of the Cohen songs that I first learned (and often played myself):   “Suzanne”   “Hey, That’s No Way to Say Goodbye”   This is another favorite from that 1967 album:   “So Long Marianne”   And... Read more

    Understandably, Americans like to travel to see Maya ruins in Mexico and the Acropolis of Athens and the pyramids of Egypt and other such archaeological sites.   Many aren’t aware of a really important site on the Illinois side of the Mississippi River, just outside of St. Louis.  Here’s a new discovery there:   http://www.realclearlife.com/2016/11/10/researchers-rewrite-history-of-cahokia-with-new-beaded-burial-findings/     Read more

    Knowledge can be communicated, but not wisdom. One can find it, live it, be fortified by it, do wonders through it, but one cannot communicate and teach it. Hermann Hesse (1877-1962)     Read more

    Thanks to Andrew Sargent for bringing this interesting item to my attention:   https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/global-opinions/wp/2016/11/10/im-a-muslim-a-woman-and-an-immigrant-i-voted-for-trump/   As some readers of my blog may have noticed, I myself didn’t support Donald Trump for the presidency.   But I also didn’t support Hillary Clinton, and I didn’t support her for many of the very reasons cited in this article by Asra Nomani.   I understand.  I get it.     Read more