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I had an enjoyable time last night participating in a panel at Brigham Young University.\u00a0 Camrey Bagley Fox (who played Emma Smith in Witnesses<\/em>), and Mark Goodman (the director of Witnesses<\/em>) and Russell Richins (the producer) and I (executive producer) took questions after a showing of the film in the Education in Zion Auditorium of the Joseph F. Smith Building.\u00a0 We had a reasonably good audience \u2014 which surprised me, given that campus seemed incredibly deserted generally for a Friday night during the academic year.\u00a0 I really do wonder where everybody was.\u00a0 I don\u2019t think that I\u2019ve ever seen the academic campus and student areas look so, well, uninhabited<\/em>.\u00a0 We drove through and around campus a bit, wanting to take a look in particular at the new and nearly completed music building \u2014 we\u2019ve hardly been in Utah for the past several months! \u2014 and saw almost nobody outside.\u00a0 That was distinctly weird.\u00a0 It almost felt as if the place were under a curfew.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Incidentally, if you\u2019re interested in streaming Witnesses<\/em>, for yourself or your family or for a group of invited friends or neighbors or colleagues at work, here\u2019s a link to it on the Living Scriptures website:\u00a0 Witnesses<\/em> (2021).<\/a>\u00a0 I would think that Witnesses<\/em> would make for a good Sabbath Day activity or for an entertaining and beneficial way of doing a Family Home Evening or two.\u00a0 So, for that matter, would the docudrama sequel to Witnesses<\/em>, Undaunted<\/em><\/a>, which is available for streaming through Living Scriptures in both Part 1<\/a> and Part 2<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n The infamous women\u2019s volleyball game between Duke University and Brigham Young University \u2014 which, by the way, BYU won \u2014 is plainly the gift that keeps on giving.\u00a0 Here are two more articles about it.\u00a0 I particularly liked the second one:<\/p>\n Washington Post<\/em>:\u00a0 \u201cThe history behind why a BYU volleyball game went viral: The university\u2019s history frames allegations of racism from fans.\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n Pittsburgh Post-Gazette<\/em>:\u00a0 \u201cPaul Zeise: BYU owed apology now that the facts of Duke volleyball \u2018scandal\u2019 are known\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Since the question is occasionally asked of me, I think I\u2019ll explain here what is required to get me to come and do a fireside.\u00a0 However, I\u2019ll leave untreated the even more fundamentally important question of why anybody would want<\/em> me to come for a fireside.\u00a0 That remains, perhaps, one of the insoluble mysteries of mortal life in this fallen world.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n So:\u00a0 What does it take for me to come and do a fireside or public lecture?<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n First of all, it requires an invitation.\u00a0 I never invite myself.\u00a0 (Left on my own, on the whole . . . well, let me simply say that I\u2019m quite content<\/em> to be left on my own.\u00a0 I have plenty to do.)\u00a0 If it\u2019s to be at a private home or to a private group, a private invitation is all that\u2019s necessary.\u00a0 If I\u2019m to speak in a chapel, though, somebody with appropriate authority needs to do the inviting.\u00a0 Sometimes, the Interpreter Foundation\u2019s fundraising people will set up a \u201ccottage meeting\u201d that involves me.\u00a0 That\u2019s rather a different matter.\u00a0 But it remains true that I<\/em> never simply invite myself<\/em>.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Second, it needs to fit into my calendar. \u00a0I can only do so many of these. \u00a0And, since my calendar is complex, with lots of travel and other obligations, and since it tends to be filled up well in advance, the invitation needs to be extended fairly early.\u00a0 If the fireside is close to my home or close to where I might be otherwise staying, that makes things somewhat easier.\u00a0 But I\u2019ve had to turn down quite a few invitations that I would like to have accepted, simply because they couldn\u2019t be made to work on my schedule.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Next, although I never expect an honorarium or a speaker\u2019s fee and have received one only on extremely rare occasions\u2014perhaps two or three times in my entire life\u2014if special travel and lodging will be required, they need to be covered or provided.\u00a0 (I don\u2019t know why, but my plan to become enormously wealthy by going into academics seems to have conclusively failed.)\u00a0 I simply don\u2019t have the budget, whether through the Interpreter Foundation or on my own, privately, to go out on public speaking tours.\u00a0 Local travel is one thing; longer drives and airline flights are another.\u00a0 Now, travel and lodging can be handled in various ways.\u00a0 Some of my invitations to speak have come through the BYU Alumni Association; for all I know, I may still be on its \u201cSpeaker\u2019s Bureau\u201d<\/a> list despite my retirement.\u00a0 But maybe not. \u00a0Either the Association or one of its local chapters has covered my travel and lodging.\u00a0 Sometimes, I\u2019m hosted and fed by local people, in their homes.\u00a0 Sometimes, when it works out, my wife and I stay with relatives.\u00a0 It varies.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n If the fireside or speech is to be given within a reasonable radius of my home\u2014more or less along the Wasatch Front or maybe within the borders of Utah, or near where I\u2019m staying if I\u2019m traveling privately\u2014I often simply drive and, usually, am not even compensated for gasoline or for the use of my car.\u00a0 I never ask for gas money and have seldom had it offered to me.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n That\u2019s pretty much it, I think.\u00a0 Nothing mysterious.\u00a0 And, although my more oddball critics will pretend not to believe that it could be so \u2014 they\u2019ve been vocal on this topic in the past \u2014 nothing sinister or underhanded.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n I know.\u00a0 I know.\u00a0 It\u2019s been a long, umm, dry spell since I\u2019ve brought you any new electrifying horrors from the Christopher Hitchens Memorial \u201cHow Religion Poisons Everything\u201d File<\/em>\u00a9.\u00a0 But I\u2019m here for you.\u00a0 And so I now offer you a re-energizing quartet of stories from the Hitchens File<\/em> that are just about guaranteed to leave you exploding with deliciously righteous indignation:<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cElder Uchtdorf visits Navajo community where the Church is helping bring electricity and water: Project involving the Church, state of Utah, Navajo Nation and others has brought electricity to Westwater, next to Blanding\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n \u201cThe Church of Jesus Christ Gives US$32 Million to the World Food Programme: Funds will provide critical food and emergency support to 1.6 million people in nine nations\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a>
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