Daniel C. Peterson's Blog, page 1223

An update on the horror approaching Kobane

    http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-...   If the Islamic State is moving reinforcements from its stronghold in Raqqa to join the siege of Kobane, doesn’t this provide an excellent opportunity for coalition air strikes?  As retired USAF General Thomas McInerny pointed out on Fox News yesterday, the terrain between Raqqa and Kobane is perfect for the exercise [Read More...]

2 Nephi 15

    Isaiah can be confusing, daunting, intimidating.  But his eloquence astonishes, and he’s remarkably quotable.  Which is why he’s the most quoted prophet in the New Testament.  And in the Book of Mormon.  And in the Dead Sea Scrolls.  He is, as Elder Bruce McConkie once termed him, “a prophet’s prophet.”   There are [Read More...]

“Clash of the Progressive Pieties”

    An amusing but ultimately deadly serious article about the emerging Brave New World of American marriage and parenthood:   http://www.nationalreview.com/article...   Posted from Ko Olina, Oahu, Hawaii  

A good night in Hawaii, even though we’re all doomed.

      An enjoyable night last night:   An excellent dinner and good conversation with Keith and Jennifer Clark Lane at Turtle Bay in the early evening, after which my wife and I shared a chocolate milkshake in Laie and then drove past the Polynesian Cultural Center, BYU-Hawaii, and the Laie Hawaii Temple, which is [Read More...]

“Mormons and Catholics have a lot to talk about”

    An interesting Catholic perspective:   http://www.cruxnow.com/faith/2014/09/...   Posted from Ko Olina, Oahu, Hawaii  

“A dark day” and “a disgrace”

    The United Nations envoy to Syria is warning about bloody massacres to come if Kobane falls:   http://www.aljazeera.com/news/middlee...   Pete Hegseth and retired Lt. Gen. Thomas McInerny (USAF) discuss the shameful failure of Turkish armor and American air power to intervene on behalf of the embattled and heroic defenders of Kobane:   http://nation.foxnews.com/2014/10/07/... [Read More...]

Religion as equalizer

    President Harold B. Lee was fond of saying that the purpose of religion was to comfort the afflicted and to afflict the comfortable.  Here’s another way of putting something like the same idea:   “It has been often said, very truely, that religion is the thing that makes the ordinary man feel extraordinary; [Read More...]

2 Nephi 14

    The first verse of today’s reading, 2 Nephi 14 (= Isaiah 4) seems as if it should really have been numbered with the previous chapter.   But the rest of 2 Nephi 14/Isaiah 4 is a refreshing contrast to the preceding chapter, for, whereas the verses immediately before it had condemned the daughters of [Read More...]

Announcing the online edition of Royal Skousen’s “Analysis of Textual Variants of the Book of Mormon”

    The Interpreter Foundation is privileged, as of 7 October 2014, to host an electronic version of Professor Royal Skousen’s massive six-book Analysis of Textual Variants of the Book of Mormon on its website, thus making one of the most impressive undertakings in the history of Latter-day Saint scholarship easily accessible, at no charge, to [Read More...]

Flavors

    One of the many pleasures of visiting Hawaii is trying new — or revisiting uncommon — flavors.   Consider pitaya, for example, commonly known as “dragon fruit”:     Its flavor isn’t quite as exotic as its appearance — really, how could it be? what could possibly live up to that remarkable look? [Read More...]