http://www.thevintagenews.com/2016/09/10/1000-year-old-viking-sword-found-just-laying-ground-iceland/   Sigh.  About the only thing that I ever find just lying on the ground are soggy newspapers.   Posted from Carlsbad, California     Read more

    http://www.cmc.edu/news/professor-glen-cooper-brings-expertise-in-late-antique-middle-eastern-european-studies-to-cmc   Many, many moons ago, Dr. Glen Cooper was a student of mine.  More recently, he was an associate in the formative years of BYU’s Middle Eastern Texts Initiative, which I conceived and brought into what ultimately became the Maxwell Institute, and which I led until 2012-2013.   Bliss was it in that dawn to be alive, But to be young was very heaven!   There was, back in those days, a really heady sense of momentum, of... Read more

    By any standard, Jack Welch ranks among the most significant scholars and intellectuals in the history of Mormonism.  This appointment at the University of Southern California appropriately recognizes that fact: http://www.widtsoefoundation.org   Posted from Carlsbad, California     Read more

    In the 194th scripture roundtable posted by the Interpreter Foundation, Martin Tanner and Bruce Webster discuss Lesson 2 in the 2017 Gospel Doctrine manual:   http://www.mormoninterpreter.com/scripture-roundtable-194-doctrine-and-covenants-and-church-history-lesson-2-behold-i-am-jesus-christ-the-savior-of-the-world/   Posted from Carlsbad, California     Read more

    We need not fear the future or falter in hope or good cheer, because God is with us. Trials may come — and we may not understand everything that happens to us or around us.  But if we humbly, quietly trust in the Lord, He will give us guidance and strength in every challenge we face.  When our only desire is to please Him, we will be blessed with a deep inner peace. Elder Bruce D. Porter (1952-2016)... Read more

    My first column of 2017:   http://www.deseretnews.com/article/865670449/Touching-other-lives-for-good.html   It wasn’t what I had planned to write.  As things happened, though, it’s what I felt that I needed to write.   Posted from Carlsbad, California     Read more

    I first met Bruce when we were neighbors on the third floor of BYU’s Hinckley Hall during our freshman year at the University.  His roommate was another very tall freshman, who went by the name of Clayton Christensen.  Clayton himself has gone on to some rather notable accomplishments.   Bruce was a far more disciplined and focused student than I was.  (So, for that matter, was Clayton.)   By reason of our living quarters, we were members of the... Read more

    Back in the early 1920s, when I was in high school, my teacher in a class in either American government or American history — I can’t recall which it was, nor his name — was a specimen of that rara avis, a card-carrying member of some socialist political party or other.   His party membership may or may not be relevant to the little episode I’m about to relate, but I found it interesting.  I’d never met a... Read more

    Once-promising diabetes ‘breakthrough’ comes unglued with a major retraction   Whether he says so or not, at least one of my readers will see my posting of this item as merely yet another instance of my religion-motivated fear and loathing of science.  And he, or somebody like him, will immediately deploy the well-at-least-unlike-religion-science-recognizes-its-errors-and-is-self-correcting defensive device.   However, I’m actually posting this item for at least two reasons:   First, I find it interesting in and of itself.  I like science.  I... Read more

    A signed editorial on CNN is entitled “The Mormon Tabernacle Choir’s Trump-sized mistake”:   http://www.cnn.com/2017/01/01/opinions/mormon-tabernacle-choir-mistake-reyes/   I’ve already pretty much stated my view on this matter, here and here and then, most lengthily, here.   In my judgment, the “Trump-sized mistake” was made not by the Mormon Tabernacle Choir but by the American — and, most specifically, the Republican — electorate.  I don’t, however, want to re-litigate the political issues today.  That’s not the point of this blog entry.... Read more