In a new article, my friend and colleague Ralph Hancock shares a reformulation of some timely thoughts on certain current controversies that he originally presented at the 2016 FairMormon conference back in early August:   http://ldsmag.com/love-wins-charity-loses/     Read more

    Based upon a presentation by attorney Alexander Dushku at the recent BYU Education Week, this is an important article:   “Coming Challenges to Religious Liberty: What’s on the Horizon?”   To which I add these interesting and related items, as well:   “NCAA turns up pressure on North Carolina over bathroom law”   “NCAA ruling in Carolina could tie to BYU”   “Elder Oaks Addresses Elections, Hope and Freedom at BYU”   Elder Oaks’s excellent, thoughtful, and timely speech can... Read more

    I don’t want to let my father’s birthday pass without mention.  He’s been gone now for more than thirteen years.   A story, not particularly significant or edifying, but one of very many:   One summer, when I was probably just entering into my teenage years, my Dad invited me to go along with him the next day.  He had a “job walk” up in the Sierra Nevada mountains.  What that meant was that a potential client —... Read more

    لو تأملت أحوال الناس لوجدت أكثرهم عيوباً أشدهم تعييباً If you think deeply about the conditions of people, you will find those who are most concerned with the faults of others to have the most faults themselves. al-Jahiz of Basra (d. AD 869)     Read more

    An interesting (and challenging) article from Taylor Halverson:     http://www.deseretnews.com/article/865662316/Taylor-Halverson-Break-the-tradition-of-education-by-lectures-and-learn-more-by-doing.html   This challenge will be difficult for many academics to take up.  After all, not a few of us went into teaching largely because we treasure our own opinions and love the sound of our own voices.  We have brilliant ideas and insights that even the least interested desperately need to hear, and sometimes at great length.  (My favorite definition of the word professor?  “Someone who talks in other... Read more

    A Muslim perspective:   http://www.sltrib.com/lifestyle/faith/4330390-155/commentary-when-did-modesty-become-a     Read more

    http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/evidence-rebuts-chomsky-s-theory-of-language-learning/   This is a pretty big development, since Noam Chomsky’s theories have long been a huge part of the landscape not only of linguistics but of cognitive and evolutionary psychology, child development, and a host of related fields, and have helped to make him a major figure in areas outside his academic specialty.  (He is, for example, a huge name in far-left political thinking and in revisionist historical tales about America.)   Note, too, the authors’ entirely justified... Read more

    “Student leaders oppose BYU joining Big 12”   “This New Reg Will Punish Churches That Use ‘Discriminatory’ Gender Practices”     Read more

    “Trump effect? Fewer U.S. Mormons say they’re Republicans, study shows”   “Donald Trump might be loosening the Republican Party’s hold on Mormon voters”   I have certain reservations about voting for Gary Johnson, the Libertarian Party’s nominee for the White House, and I haven’t endorsed him yet.  (And may not.)  But then, as I hope I’ve made clear, I have enormous reservations about both Mr. Donald J. Trump and Clinton Inc. that make it impossible for me to... Read more

    He gets some details wrong.  But this is still a remarkable little essay about the case of the young Utah returned missionary who was apparently kidnapped twelve years ago by agents of North Korea — and about the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints:   http://www.postguam.com/forum/featured_columnists/please-pray-for-david-sneddon/article_56680fba-77b8-11e6-8c6b-eb30c1fc88f5.html   I’ve written previously about this case, here and here.     Read more