As I’ve explained, I maintain a blog for many reasons.   One of them is purely personal:  It’s a kind of journal for me, and, even more particularly, it’s a way of remembering things, and especially of remembering people, whose memory I refuse to allow to be wholly lost.   So, for instance, I’m afraid that readers of this blog will have to put up with my regular yearly memorials to my brother and my parents.   Today... Read more

    Although he was born in Salt Lake City, where he received both his bachelor’s and medical degrees (before doing further work in cardiology at Johns Hopkins), Elder Dale G. Renlund of the Council of the Twelve is, in important ways, Swedish.  (His full name, by the way, is Dale Gunnar Renlund.)   His parents were immigrants to the United States from Sweden and Finland, and Swedish was his first language.  Moreover, he spent three of his teenage years... Read more

    The story of Korihor, which occurs in Alma 30, has long been a favorite among Latter-day Saints — perhaps because, to some degree at least, it seems so sadly and repetitively applicable.   Almost precisely one year ago, I wrote a column for the Deseret News entitled “Korihor and ‘Social Darwinism.'”  Perhaps you might find it interesting.   Posted from Stockholm, Sweden     Read more

    Maybe underwater archaeology is just on my mind right now, but here’s some new archaeology relating to one of the most important battles in the history of Western civilization:   http://www.seeker.com/underwater-remains-of-ancient-naval-base-found-near-athens-1860334692.html?source=realclearscience.com   Sadly, there’ve been lots and lots of battles.  And many of them are rightly called “important.”  But only a few — Hastings, for example, and ‘Ayn Jalut and a few others — can justly be termed “pivotal,” “epoch-making,” battles that decisively altered human history.  The battle of... Read more

    This isn’t something that you read every day:   http://www.worldreligionnews.com/religion-news/christianity/mormon-missionary-is-a-finalist-in-miss-world-new-zealand-pageant   Of course (as you might have expected), she’s actually a returned Mormon missionary.   In any event, I wish her well.   Posted from Stockholm, Sweden   Read more

    Today’s reading, Alma 29, begins with a very famous passage (29:1-2).  It’s one, in fact, that I can scarcely read without slipping into the rhythm of a famous Mormon song.   For a long time, candidly, I really didn’t like that song.  But it’s grown on me, and its message is, if anything, more powerful and urgent to me now than it ever has been.   Almost exactly three years ago, I wrote a column for the Deseret... Read more

    “A childhood without books – that would be no childhood. That would be like being shut out from the enchanted place where you can go and find the rarest kind of joy.” Astrid Lindgren (1907-2002), Swedish author and creator of (among other things) Pippi Longstocking   Posted from Stockholm, Sweden     Read more

    An intriguing discovery from a stone quarry in Österplana, Västra Götaland, Sweden:   http://www.space.com/33163-first-extinct-meteorite-discovered.html   Posted from Stockholm, Sweden   Read more

    The self-proclaimed “Islamic State” has committed unusually gruesome mass murders wherever it’s been able to gain power, but it has also practiced the destruction of cultural monuments, historic buildings, and archaeological sites with industrial efficiency.   This article sets out the way in which cutting edge technology is being deployed in order to preserve information about how these destroyed monuments looked before the barbarians of ISIS arrived on the scene:   http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/next/ancient/digital-preservation-syria/   On a related note, my wife and... Read more

    I doubt that Larry Pressler’s endorsement will carry much weight with anybody — he was, after all, a moderate Republican, and he’s been out of the Senate for quite some time — and I don’t agree with the principal reason that he raises (according to this article).   Still, if you read the piece, you’ll notice an expressly Mormon angle to it.  And if you read the final paragraph of his Wikipedia biography, you’ll understand why that’s so.  ... Read more