“Don’t be like anybody else. Be different. Then you can make a contribution. Otherwise, you just echo something; you’re just a reflection.” Hugh Nibley   Read more

    One conservative columnist has made his choice:   http://www.nationalreview.com/article/429092/marco-rubio-conservative-polls-beats-hillary-clinton   It’s a choice that I could be satisfied with.     Read more

    This is a really big deal:   http://ldsmag.com/a-new-way-to-study-and-share-the-book-of-mormon/     Read more

    http://www.nationalreview.com/article/429140/hillary-clinton-campaign-logos-pandering-suggestions   Incidentally, here’s an opportunity to hear Hillary’s attempt at a southern black dialect:   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bWRoEpYuHwI   (Can you imagine, by the way, what the reaction would be if a conservative were to give so political a sermon in a church?  The American Civil Liberties Union would be having a meltdown.  The editorial page of the New York Times would declare a constitutional crisis.  Liberals across the nation would be scurrying to their basements, awaiting the brownshirts... Read more

    I published this column a year ago, but it’s still as relevant as it was then (which may, of course, be “not very”):   http://www.deseretnews.com/article/865618763/New-year-a-time-for-looking-both-backward-and-forward.html     Read more

    Looking for that Secret Something® that will power you and/or your business to new heights during 2016?   Why not turn to tried and true principles of success from the past — including the very distant past?   http://www.gq-magazine.co.uk/entertainment/articles/2012-12/05/peep-show-mark-corrigan-business-secrets-of-the-pharaohs     Read more

    I failed to note this article, from roughly six weeks ago, written by a Muslim thinker whom I’ve admired since I first heard him speak back around 1983:   http://theconversation.com/how-islamic-law-can-take-on-isis-50113   I think that this is the way Muslims need to move forward and to defeat the obscurantists and extremists in their midst.     Read more

    At the August 2014 FairMormon conference, historians Matthew C. Godfrey and Matthew J. Grow (both of whom work for the Church History Department of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints; see their biographies here) illustrated ways in which the ongoing Joseph Smith Papers project sheds light on the setting, origin, text, and interpretation of the revelations given to the Church in the early nineteenth century:   http://www.fairmormon.org/perspectives/fair-conferences/2014-fairmormon-conference/story-behind-revelations     Read more

    Of the many things that could be said about 1 Nephi 5, I choose to focus, today at least, on up and down.   In 1 Nephi 5:1, Nephi and his brothers come “down” from Jerusalem to the “wilderness” where his parents, Lehi and Sariah, anxiously await their return.  (Cf. 1 Nephi 5:5.)   In 1 Nephi 5:6, they’re described as having gone “up” to “the land of Jerusalem.”   Throughout these chapters, while the Lehite party is still in the vicinity... Read more

    C. S. Lewis once predicted that the day would eventually come when we would be ethically permitted to eat only cabbage — but, even then, only if the cabbage had been certified to have died a natural death.   That day may be almost at hand:   http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/429097/you-are-immoral-if-you-eat-fish     Read more