A short but nicely written endorsement of the idea of Mitt Romney as head of the State Department:   http://www.city-journal.org/html/mitt-romney-secretary-state-14864.html   It’s not certain that Mr. Trump is intending to offer the position to him.  It’s not certain that he would accept if it were offered.   And, of course, there are obstacles.  For instance, Mr. Romney has had some exceptionally tough things to say about Mr. Trump, all of them true.  (For example, Mr. Trump’s lawyers... Read more

    “You become like what you worship. When you gaze in awe, admiration, and wonder at something or someone, you begin to take on something of the character of the object of your worship.” N. T. Wright             Read more

    Jeff Lindsay briefly reports on a couple of recent publications that have been years in the making:   http://mormanity.blogspot.com/2016/11/bigger-than-nahom-surprising-link.html   I don’t pretend to be much of a historical linguist — I’m interested in elements of the field, and I suppose that I know more than most folks do, but my acquaintance with the subject is at best avocational — let alone a specialist in historical Semitic linguistics.  And I know effectively nothing about Uto-Aztecan.   But Brian Stubbs’s work... Read more

    Here’s a clue:  It’s actually working rather well.   Why?   Whether consciously or (much more likely) not, the Church has followed the sagacious counsel offered on 20 January 2011 by a columnist for the Deseret News:   “Anti-Mormon mockery can actually lead to teaching moments”   I have it on excellent authority, by the way, that the second then-forthcoming play to which the author of the column referred was, in fact, Trey Parker and Matt Stone’s The Book... Read more

    Can you guess what day of the week it is?   Hint:  Interpreter: A Journal of Mormon Scripture has just published a new article:   http://www.mormoninterpreter.com/arise-from-the-dust-insights-from-dust-related-themes-in-the-book-of-mormon-part-3-dusting-off-a-famous-chiasmus-alma-36/     Read more

      Okay.  This is strange.  And it’s received more than seven million views thus far:   “The BYU gymnastics team just won the ‘Mannequin Challenge'”     And here’s a response from BYU Theater Ballet.   Wow.  Seeing some of the positions that these folks can assume and hold, I’m not entirely convinced that I even belong to the same species.     Read more

    A piece on the Time website about research done at BYU:   http://time.com/4560579/daylight-savings-mental-health/     Read more

    This is a rather discouraging article from the Washington Post:   https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/in-twin-falls-idaho-co-dependency-of-whites-and-immigrants-faces-a-test/2016/11/17/f243f0da-ac0f-11e6-a31b-4b6397e625d0_story.html?hpid=hp_hp-top-table-main_twinfalls-934pm%3Ahomepage%2Fstory   I don’t know what the percentages are, but I know that there is a substantial Mormon population in Twin Falls.  I wonder whether any of them might have anything to report here.   There is also a large facility in Twin Falls, employing many people, for the production of Chobani yogurt.  Although the company is based in New York, the Twin Falls facility (which opened... Read more

    “In the history of science, ever since the famous trial of Galileo, it has repeatedly been claimed that scientific truth cannot be reconciled with the religious interpretation of the world.  Although I am now convinced that scientific truth is unassailable in its own field, I have never found it possible to dismiss the content of religious thinking as simply part of an outmoded phase in the consciousness of mankind, a part we shall have to give up from... Read more

    You’ve probably all heard this by now, but just in case you haven’t:   “First on CNN: Donald Trump, Mitt Romney to meet this weekend”   I confess that it would be nice to have an intelligent adult at State.       Read more