He is, bar none, my very favorite non-me writer for the Deseret News:   http://www.deseretnews.com/article/865646959/A-history-of-6Pride-and-Prejudice7-on-TV-and-film.html   It would have been quite inappropriate for me not to have excluded myself from the rankings, don’t you think?   I’m also a big Jane Austen fan.  (And I absolutely loathe the film version of Pride and Prejudice with Laurence Olivier.  I regard its production as a criminal act.)     Read more

    Warren Aston has been visiting Arabia and reading and thinking and writing about this topic for a very long time now.  His new book is now out.  I’ve just ordered it, and I’m very much looking forward to seeing it:   http://bookstore.xlibris.com/Products/SKU-001023307/LEHI-and-SARIAH-in-ARABIA.aspx       Read more

    My wife is still in Hawaii — I’ve been seamlessly replaced there by a neighbor and by her sister — and I’ve spent the whole day back here in the real world creating two midterm examinations with which to torment and afflict my students.  So I decided that I needed to go out for a burger at Five Guys and then to step across the way for a movie.   I’ve just returned from seeing the new film Risen.  ... Read more

    And, as it happens, I like this article.  Very much.   http://www.heraldextra.com/momclick/parenting/peculiar-people/peculiar-people-i-love-mormons/article_9519f243-105b-5737-b7d9-3bbeeb890d6f.html     Read more

    In August 2014, Sharon Eubank delivered one of the most popular and well received presentations in the history of FairMormon (or FAIR).  She received a standing ovation.  You can read her remarks (or watch them; they’ll require just under 58 minutes) here:   http://www.fairmormon.org/perspectives/fair-conferences/2014-fairmormon-conference/womans-church     Read more

    Interpreter: A Journal of Mormon Scripture published two new articles today.  Here’s the second:   http://www.mormoninterpreter.com/onomastic-wordplay-on-joseph-and-benjamin-and-gezera-shawa-in-the-book-of-mormon/     Read more

    New today, in Interpreter: A Journal of Mormon Scripture:   http://www.mormoninterpreter.com/they-were-moved-with-compassion-alma-274-5313-toponymic-wordplay-on-zarahemla-and-jershon/     Read more

    There’s a new depth of evil here.  It’s almost without precedent:   http://www.cnn.com/2016/02/19/middleeast/isis-child-soldiers/index.html     Read more

    I would want to nuance this a bit, and I think the argument is much more applicable to scientific and medical matters than elsewhere, but it needs to be heard rather widely:   5 reasons why anecdotes are totally worthless     Read more

    Obviously, not everything here fits altogether well with a Latter-day Saint approach to the matter.  But it’s interesting and funny.  (I think so, anyway.)   http://nautil.us/issue/33/attraction/shell-text-me-shell-text-me-not     Read more