In August 2012, my long-time friend and colleague Jack Welch presented a valuable retrospective on the topic of chiasmus to the annual FairMormon conference.  His remarks are available here:   http://www.fairmormon.org/perspectives/fair-conferences/2012-fair-conference/2012-forty-five-years-of-chiasmus-conversations-correspondence-criteria-and-creativity     Read more

    http://abc7.com/news/man-wraps-bacon-over-las-vegas-mosques-door-handles/1141062/   I’ve never been thrilled with the idea of “hate crimes.”  To me, there are just “crimes,” and thoughts are free.  Maybe I could be convinced, but I resist the notion.   People have the right to be wrong, to be idiots, to think uncharitable and even prejudiced and hateful thoughts.  But they should be punished firmly if they commit acts that violate laws.   In my view, wrapping bacon around the door handles of a mosque... Read more

    Today’s reading, in my daily look at the Book of Mormon, is 1 Nephi 8.   This is among the best known chapters in the Book of Mormon, a chapter that has given us one of Mormonism’s most potent symbols, the Tree of Life.   I have a lot of other things to do today, and so, both for that reason and because of my self-imposed rule for this project, I need to resist the temptation to go on and on at... Read more

    A couple of days ago, in the afternoon before we went to a family gathering, my wife and I joined for a year-end party with the members of a reading group to which we’ve belonged for, oh, something like twenty-five or thirty years.  The names of some of the members of the group — e.g., Thomas Alexander, James Allen, Lowell “Ben” Bennion, R. Lanier Britsch, Cherry Bushman Silver, and John Sorenson — will be familiar to those who follow... Read more

    http://www.mormontabernaclechoir.org/articles/the-musical-journey-of-natalie-cole.html?cid=social_20160101_56881426&adbid=682999152314167296&adbpl=tw&adbpr=46682998     Read more

    Here’s my New Year’s column for 2011, five years ago:   http://www.deseretnews.com/article/700210696/May-your-new-year-begin-better-than-Amalickiahs.html     Read more

    “When these people walk in the room, they don’t say, ‘Oh, hello!  How’s the weather?  It’s so beautiful outside.  Isn’t it lovely?  How are the Yankees doing?  Oh they’re doing wonderful.  Great.’  They say, ‘We want deal!’”  (at an August 2015 rally in Iowa)     Read more

    This reflects a battle of ideas — or a heartfelt and intense discussion, if you prefer — that is and ought to be going on within the Islamic community:   http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/junaid-jahangir/exclusivism-muslim-theology_b_8863856.html     Read more

    Everyone’s a critic.   http://www.stmichaelshospital.com/media/detail.php?source=hospital_news/2015/20151224a_hn   Next thing you know, somebody will be criticizing the latest Star Wars film on scientific grounds.  “There’s no sound in space,” some carping skeptic will say.  Or, “How come, if they can make an absolutely life-like prosthetic hand for Luke Skywalker, they can’t make a more flexible C3PO?”   Sheesh.     Read more

    1 Nephi 7, my Book of Mormon reading material for today, lacks any and all traces of romantic love.  Lehi’s sons are dispatched to persuade Ishmael and his family to join them on their journey to the New World, and a brief account is given of the negotiations.   That’s not to say that ancient men and women didn’t feel romantic attraction.  I can’t imagine that people have changed that much, and, anyway, there’s plenty of evidence for such attraction... Read more