He deserves to be remembered:   http://www.deseretnews.com/article/865645683/Slain-officer-remembered-as-big-old-teddy-bear.html?pg=all   I have little patience for the loud voices that seek to paint all police officers as racist and murderous thugs.  And this story leaves me with still less patience for them.     Read more

    A much-needed call from an Arab Muslim scientist:   http://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/muslim-countries-science-education-by-nidhal-guessoum-2016-01     Read more

    Back in August 2001 — just about a month before the world changed on 11 September — the irreplaceable Matt Roper presented these remarks to the annual FAIR (now FairMormon) conference:   http://www.fairmormon.org/perspectives/fair-conferences/2001-fair-conference/2001-right-on-target-boomerang-hits-and-the-book-of-mormon     Read more

    Bernie Sanders may have an even better chance at knocking Hillary Clinton off for the Democratic presidential nomination now than he did three weeks ago, when this article first appeared:   http://thefederalist.com/2015/12/30/how-tocqueville-schooled-bernie-sanders-200-years-ago/   In some ways, I have to add, I’m delighted at the possibility — however remote it may ultimately turn out to be — that the Democrats might end up nominating an old New-York-accented white socialist from one of the whitest of white states (and one... Read more

    In 2 Nephi 2, the exceptionally rich chapter that is today’s reading, many passages deserve attention.  But the day has been long — beginning with an early morning return visit, this time with a group of friends, to the Provo City Center Temple open house, followed by an excellent breakfast at a nearby cafe, and ending with dinner with other friends and attendance with them, at a performance of The Nerd at the Hale Center Theater in Orem —... Read more

    Success is to be measured not so much by the position that one has reached in life as by the obstacles which he has overcome.   If you want to lift yourself up, lift up someone else.   Associate yourself with people of good quality, for it is better to be alone than in bad company.     Read more

    A nice little controversy for Martin Luther King Day:   http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/george-washington-book-pulled_us_569cb0d5e4b0778f46f9eda9   http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2016/01/18/463488364/amid-controversy-scholastic-pulls-picture-book-about-washingtons-slave?utm_source=facebook.com&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=npr&utm_term=nprnews&utm_content=20160118   What do you think?   (Thanks to Eric Lopez for bringing this story to my notice.)     Read more

    To overcome evil with good is good, to resist evil by evil is evil.   The ink of the scholar is more sacred than the blood of the martyr.   Kindness is a mark of faith, and whoever is not kind has no faith.   Read more

    “We have only to see a few letters of the alphabet spelling our name in the sand to recognize at once the work of an intelligent agent.  How much more likely, then, is the existence of an intelligent Creator behind human DNA, the colossal biological database that contains no fewer than 3.5 billion ‘letters’ — the longest ‘word’ yet discovered?” John Lennox, Professor of Mathematics, Oxford University     Read more

    Faith is taking the first step, even when you don’t see the whole staircase.   If a man is called to be a street sweeper, he should sweep streets even as Michelangelo painted, or Beethoven composed music, or Shakespeare wrote poetry.  He should sweep streets so well that all the hosts of heaven and earth will pause to say, here lived a great street sweeper who did his job well.   Let no man pull you low enough... Read more