Category: Cornucopia

New York Post: “‘September Dawn’ succeeds completely at failure; the unified incompetence of its writing, directing and acting suggest a man who manages to be on fire and drowning at the same time, just as the bus runs him over.” New York Daily News: “‘September Dawn,’ written by an evangelical Christian, may be the worst…

A reader writes:

Another remarkable series is running at FMH: “How I became a mother.” Contributors have posted ten stories so far, many of them remarkable discussions of adoption, battles with infertility, emotional issues, family, and more. The series itself doesn’t yet seem to have a page (hint, hint!), but they’re all listed under FMH’s “Motherhood” category. This…

The function of the brain and nervous system and sense organs are in the main eliminative and not productive. Each person is at each moment capable of remembering all that has ever happened to him and of perceiving everything that is happening everywhere in the universe. The function of the brain and nervous system is…

Matt has kindly invited me to continue guest posting at will. And I’m glad, because my mind is spinning this week with thoughts I’d like to dump on you guys. I’m going to start with a long preamble: this sacrament meeting talk that was assigned to me a few months ago. More to follow tomorrow.…

BYU shot up over 50 places in the university rankings that were just released this week. Not in the US News and World Report rankings, where BYU continues to bounce around the 70s, but in the Washington Monthly rankings of universities’ based on their contributions to society, where BYU went from 124 to 68, right…

The writer of the gospel of John worked really, really hard to make it clear that no one suspected Judas:

We seem to discuss issues of homosexuality ad nausum around here. Surprisingly, one particular subtopic that hasn’t really come up in the past is the real problem of anti-gay violence.

Baseball cards and Pokemon cards are the modern descendants of the 18th and 19th century trade card

The Old Testament gives us all sorts of strange stories. One that I’ve been thinking about lately is the delightfully wacky book of Esther. In particular, I’ve been wondering about the lessons on sex and morality that we can learn from this book. And I find the answers a little surprising, to say the least.…

We left our hotel late Sunday morning, heading home from Utah. We weren’t sure whether we’d make a 2-day trip of it, stopping in St. George or Vegas, or whether we’d pull an all nighter. It would depend on how we felt.

I don’t know of any Americans planning to move into my ward soon. If there were any, I wish they would understand a few things from the outset. (If you’re contemplating a foreign assignment in an industrial nation, some of this might apply to your situation as well.)

Comments expressing love for President Faust have been left by readers in India and the Netherlands Antilles.

“The Faust family requests that in lieu of flowers, donations may be made to the Church Missionary Fund or to the Perpetual Education Fund.” There is a site at lds.org/Faust available for making donations.

President James E. Faust, second counselor to President Gordon B. Hinckley, has passed away at age 87.

It is surely one of the more unexpected voices to go to bat for Joseph Smith: Harold Bloom in his 1992 book The American Religion, which gave serious (if unconventional) consideration to Joseph Smith’s role as a religious figure and which famously described him as a “religious genius.” As sort of a post-script, in the…

On Matt’s thread, Jordon F. wrote, “I should add that I think children are particularly quick at grasping and enjoying the opportunity of rendering service as a family. “

Over time I’ve discussed various reasons to think that we’ll have the pleasure of raising kids in the Millennium. For convenience I’ve collected all those reasons and shortened them down, with links to the longer original versions.

“Our correspondences show us where our intimacies lie,” writes Terry Tempest Williams.

I just finished finished reading Karen Armstrong’s A Short History of Myth (2005). Almost everyone loves myth from a distance, as a conceptual springboard or reference, as long as it doesn’t get too close to one’s own beliefs or worldview. This book helps put myth in a more useful perspective, which I’d like to explore.…

There’s something interesting in the current Deseret Book catalog.

For more than 200 years, my father’s family has lived in western New York, centered between Canandaigua and Palmyra. Whenever anyone publishes a description of Joseph Smith’s neighborhood and the neighbors who knew him or hired him or harassed him, I scour the writing for familiar names.

1. How does Harry Potter get from one room to another?

When I was in high school, I had a friend whose family always struggled to make ends meet.

Breastplate of righteousness? Check. Helmet of salvation? Check. Garments of vengeance and cloke of zeal? Check, and double check.