Ugo Perego brings this hopeful item to my attention:   https://www.the-newshub.com/us-politics/mitt-romney-in-it-to-win-it   Color me skeptical.  But I would be delighted — delighted — if it were true.     Read more

    We must believe in free will, we have no choice.  (Isaac Bashevis Singer)   Read more

    Does political sympathy make people more beautiful in our eyes?  Here’s a curious bit of social-science research:   https://psmag.com/the-alluring-look-of-a-like-minded-liberal-69e45299eae7#.ijzmnoats     Read more

    This week’s new article in Interpreter: A Journal of Mormon Scripture has appeared:   http://www.mormoninterpreter.com/joseph-smith-and-the-doctrine-of-sealing/     Read more

    http://www.ldsliving.com/How-the-Secretary-to-3-Popes-Became-a-Mormon/s/82589?utm_source=ldsliving&utm_medium=email   For more on Sister Piera, see   “Amazing Testimony”   “Piera Bellaviti — Nun Convert”     Read more

    This is a valuable historical-background explanation, but it’s also important because it’s the voice of a believing Muslim:   http://www.cnn.com/2016/07/04/opinions/medina-attack-opinion-haroon-moghul/index.html   I recommend it to those who want to understand something of the current crisis in the Middle East and the Islamic world.     Read more

    David Blankenhorn, the head of the Institute for American Values — with whom and under whose auspices I’ve spent time at extremely valuable long seminars and meetings on Malta, in southern Spain, and at the Carter Center in Atlanta, dealing with relations between the Islamic world and the West — spearheaded the writing of this open letter that appears in The American Interest:   “To Protect and Defend: A Letter to Trump Supporters”   Here’s a brief podcast... Read more

    “I speak for all Americans in expressing our gratitude to the Mormon people—for their pioneer spirit, their devotion to culture and learning, their example of industry and self-reliance. But I am particularly in their debt tonight for their successful battle to make religious liberty a living reality—for having proven to the world that different faiths of different views could flourish harmoniously in our midst—and for having proven to the Nation in this century that a public servant devout... Read more

    The 2016 FairMormon conference will be held on Thursday (4 August) and Friday (5 August), at the Utah Valley Convention Center in Provo — very near to the newly dedicated Provo City Center Temple.  Here’s further information about it:   http://blog.fairmormon.org/2016/06/27/2016-fairmormon-conference/       Read more

    The comparison that comes immediately to my mind when I consider the story of Amalickiah as it’s told in Alma 47 is Shakespeare’s depiction of Richard III.   “And thus I clothe my naked villainy With odd old ends stol’n out of holy writ; And seem a saint, when most I play the devil.”   LADY ANNE: Villain, thou know’st nor law of God nor man: No beast so fierce but knows some touch of pity. RICHARD, DUKE OF... Read more