“Our life is frittered away by detail. . . .  Simplify!  Simplify!” Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862)   Read more

    As a classic episode from The Simpsons demonstrated many years ago — thanks to Edie Stephens Hickey for reminding me of it! — the two-party system is sacred:   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4v7XXSt9XRM   So it’s horrifying to think that Utah might fail to genuflect before it:   CNN:  “Mormons offended by Trump could upend two-party tradition”   The Hill:  “McMullin tops new poll of Utah voters”   RedState:  “Evan McMullin’s Recent Q&A Shows That There’s Still Someone In The Race... Read more

    Its suggestive title notwithstanding, this article isn’t actually about Donald Trump’s social life.  It’s about the second planet out from the Sun in our solar system:   http://www.astronomy.com/news/2016/10/venus-explodes-with-volcanoes-in-the-present-day     Read more

    Nice story:   http://www.deseretnews.com/article/865665133/Hand-of-God-moments-lead-Philadelphia-76ers-CEO-to-join-LDS-Church.html     Read more

    Ryan Larsen kindly calls my attention to this interesting piece:   http://mormonpuzzlepieces.blogspot.com/2016/10/the-parallel-books-of-nephi.html     Read more

    The invaluable Jeff Lindsay issues a call to action to (I’m thinking) especially young Latter-day Saints:   http://mormanity.blogspot.com/2016/10/what-ammons-story-can-teach-us-about.html   Something to consider.     Read more

    Olivier Roy is one of the most eminent French scholars of modern “political Islam,” and this is an extremely interesting little piece.  I hope you can access it:   http://www.weeklystandard.com/terror-and-a-generation-of-nihilists-a-conversation-with-olivier-roy/article/2004955   I look forward to reading his new book.  I see things much the way he seems to see them.     Read more

    The Onion:  “Trump Complains Entire Personality Rigged Against Him”   The Atlantic:  “Against Donald Trump”  (For the third time since its founding in 1857, the venerable American magazine endorses a presidential candidate.)   National Review:  “Over Generalizing Never Trump”  (I like this response to a conservative writer who has endorsed Donald Trump and who mischaracterizes very many of us who cannot and will not support the Republican nominee.)   The Globe and Mail (Toronto):  “As final debate looms, Utah emerges... Read more

    Finish each day and be done with it. You have done what you could; some blunders and absurdities have crept in; forget them as soon as you can. Tomorrow is a new day; you shall begin it serenely and with too high a spirit to be encumbered with your old nonsense. Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882)   Read more

    An interesting challenge to Jeremy Runnells:   http://mormonpuzzlepieces.blogspot.com/2016/10/question-for-jeremy-runnells-ces-letter.html   Although I haven’t had much to say about the “Letter to a CES Director” — I did, at the request of others, address it in summary fashion at the 2014 FairMormon conference — I should state, for the record, that I have a very, very, very negative opinion of it.  In my view, it’s a distressingly shoddy piece of work, though it’s unquestionably been sadly effective in destroying the faith of a... Read more