We need to be completely honest and accurate in our understanding of the challenge we face.  This article is a step in that direction:   http://www.spectator.co.uk/2016/07/islamic-fundamentalists-have-a-special-loathing-for-christianity/   Posted from Newport Beach, California   Read more

    It being Friday, there’s a new article up in Interpreter: A Journal of Mormon Scripture:   http://www.mormoninterpreter.com/how-thankful-we-should-be-to-know-the-truth-zebedee-coltrins-witness-of-the-heavenly-origins-of-temple-ordinances/   One of the co-authors is Dr. Jeffrey M. Bradshaw, who leaves in just a few days, with his wife, for a mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo Kinshasa Mission.  It’s an honor to be involved, through the Interpreter Foundation, with such loyal and committed Latter-day Saints.  He has been serving as a very active, productive, and effective vice... Read more

    http://www.bloomberg.com/news/videos/2016-07-28/this-mormon-engineer-s-utopian-community-is-vermont-s-nightmare   First of all, the headline seems a bit exaggerated.  Is this really a “nightmare” for the state of Vermont as a whole?  Do most residents of the state even care?  There are perhaps at least some Vermonters who don’t or wouldn’t regard the establishment of a 20,000-person town near Tunbridge as apocalyptically evil.  Some businessmen and builders would probably like it.  And some government officials, state and county, would very possibly appreciate the increased tax revenue.   But... Read more

    “Money can only give happiness where there is nothing else to give it.”  (Jane Austen, Sense and Sensibility)   We attended a performance last night — in the Old Globe in San Diego’s Balboa Park — of the still-relatively-new musical adaptation of Jane Austen’s Sense and Sensibility.  (I’ve confessed before that I’m a very great fan of Jane Austen, and that my enthusiasm  for her makes me worry about my masculinity.)  The Old Globe is a very pleasant theater that... Read more

    For someone who can’t vote for Hillary (as I can’t), the alternatives are, shall we say, sparse:   http://www.nationalreview.com/article/438491/obama-foreign-policy-donald-trump-vladimir-putin   But, some say, there’s Gary Johnson of the Libertarian Party!   Well, I’ve always had reservations about the full Libertarian agenda (e.g., on foreign policy), though I’m strongly in favor of maximally free markets.  And Gary Johnson himself is a flawed and somewhat odd messenger for the Libertarian Party, anyhow.  Moreover, it turns out, on one set of issues... Read more

    My comments yesterday about Moroni and Plato’s “auxiliaries” were also meant to apply to today’s reading, Alma 55.   Beyond that point, a couple of simple observations specifically targeted for today:   1.   Some Latter-day Saints — particularly of past generations — have claimed that “wine” in the scriptures simply means “grape juice,” not a fermented beverage.  They’re obviously trying to defend the Word of Wisdom as a perennial commandment, which seems to me plainly unsustainable and... Read more

    The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints continues to encourage its members to become involved, wherever and however they can, in helping with the world’s massive and growing refugee problem.   And that help doesn’t have to be on a massive, global scale.  In the global perspective, the challenges can be intimidating and seem hopeless.  “Think globally, act locally.”  Even small things, whatever we can do, can help:   http://www.mormonnewsroom.org/article/refugee-outreach   Posted from Newport Beach, California     Read more

    My Deseret News column for today is largely devoted to a summary of the schedule of speakers for next week’s FairMormon conference.  If you hate goodness, truth, and light, don’t read it:   http://www.deseretnews.com/article/865658878/The-18th-annual-FairMormon-conference-is-next-week.html   Be there.   Or be somewhere else.   Those are, really, your choices.  I’m unaware of a third.   I guess I’m just that kind of a thinker.  Binary.  Simplistic.   But, after all, you’re not an electron, or some kind of probability... Read more

    “Hotel fights back after Donald Trump threatens to not pay”   And please, dear Trumpists, if you’re going to claim to have read the article, read it to the end.   Dr. Thomas Sowell, of Stanford’s Hoover Institution, is one of the writers on politics, economics, and society whom I most admire.  Even so, I missed this article from back in May, and I’m grateful to Matthew Nielsen for alerting me to it:   “An Unmitigated Disaster”  ... Read more

    Not that I would know anything about it, of course.   I offer this, though, as a gesture of kindness to each and every one of my critics:   http://www.businessinsider.com/downsides-of-being-smart-2016-7   All of them labor under a burden that I can neither know nor ever hope to understand.   Posted from Newport Beach, California     Read more