http://www.sltrib.com/lifestyle/faith/4117215-155/lds-church-rolls-out-meet-the?fullpage=1     Read more

    http://money.cnn.com/2016/07/18/news/travel-flight-holiday-turkey-egypt-france-tunisia/index.html   It’s obvious that hurting tourism is among the goals of today’s Islamist terrorists, and they’re succeeding.   You might think, at first blush, that this isn’t all that big a deal.  After all, isn’t tourism something of a frivolous and dispensable luxury?   Well, not really.  Significant dips in tourism seriously harm travel agents, airline employees, tour guides, hotel employees, bus drivers, restaurant workers, and their families — as well, of course, as entire national economies in... Read more

    I like Senator Mike Lee (R-Utah).  He seems to me a quieter, less theatrical, more effective, less personal ambitious, and far less abrasive Ted Cruz, committed to the Constitution and deeply knowledgeable about it.  (Given who his father was, that’s hardly surprising.)   A friend and I had lunch with him when he was first considering a challenge to then Senator Bob Bennett.  My friend was trying to convince him to run.  Since I had had direct dealings... Read more

    “If I were placed on a cannibal island and given a task of civilizing its people, I should straightway build a theatre.” Brigham Young   My wife and I attended a performance, last night, of the musical Peter Pan.  We saw it at the Hale Center Theater in Orem.  Curiously, it’s also playing right now at the Utah Festival Opera and Musical Theatre in Logan (where, alas, although we had dinner with Michael Ballam, we had to miss... Read more

    As we draw nearer to the celebration of Pioneer Day, it seems appropriate to me to post, yet again, a link to this marvelous example of modern pioneers in Africa.  If you haven’t seen it before, please watch.  If you have, I think you’ll be inspired by watching it again:       Read more

    A few nights ago, my wife and I watched a film with Jennifer Garner entitled Miracles from Heaven.   I liked it, and I recommend it.   It’s based on a book that claims to be telling a true story, and, having done no specific research on this particular account but lacking an ideological commitment to atheism and having read a great many more or less parallel reports, I have no prima facie reason at this stage to reject... Read more

    Unlike previous conventions, to which I paid very close attention, I’ve decided that it’s appropriate to the 2016 Republican National Convention for me to follow it by means of the brilliant reportage of Dave Barry.   Here’s an installment:   http://www.miamiherald.com/living/liv-columns-blogs/dave-barry/article90278682.html     Read more

    This is extraordinarily interesting stuff:   http://www.bbc.com/earth/story/20160715-organisms-might-be-quantum-machines   And, yes, it does appeal to my “gee whiz” sense about many things that science is disclosing.   By the way, the relatively simple universe of the old-style “hard-headed” materialist (like Mr. MacPhee, in C. S. Lewis’s That Hideous Strength), who credits only “objective facts” — by which he means things that he can see, smell, and touch, like a rock or a table — disappeared decades ago.  Even if some... Read more

    An interesting discussion of an issue that has never troubled me even a teensy tiny little bit, but that, I know, has troubled some (and inflamed others):   https://knowhy.bookofmormoncentral.org/content/why-was-a-stone-used-as-an-aid-in-translating-the-book-of-mormon     Read more

    Having just been in Amsterdam recently, the story of Anne Frank has been on my mind lately.  (It came up again during a conversation yesterday.)  So I was interested to see this:   http://lds.net/blog/buzz/entertainment/arts-culture/mormon-filmmakers-anne-frank/?utm_source=lds.net+users&utm_campaign=bf5f65503c-Newsletter_July_18_2016&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_608611419d-bf5f65503c-86348953     Read more