Stepped on this sole-piercing, skin-flaying remnant of a lemon tree the other day. My scream caught the attention of the Chinese gardeners throughout the community plots, and I lifted my foot with the offending branch in the air so that I could justify my unmanly cry.
Luckily the penetration was limited only to the rubber […]

[Read more →]

I just read the sad, sad news story of Destiny Norton, who was kidnapped and killed in Salt Lake City last week, within a few blocks of where we lived when we first moved to Utah. Jana mentioned that her father was baptized into the LDS Church the day before his daughter’s abduction and murder, […]

[Read more →]

In something I wrote recently (though I can’t quite remember where), I said that “Steve Jobs is the anti-Buddha,” lamenting his company’s ability to keep me quite attached to certain delectable material goodies in this world. Apparently I’m not the only one that reached this conclusion–the following quote is from a article on Ars Technica […]

[Read more →]

Last week the House passed a bill protecting the wording of the Pledge of Allegiance from the federal appellate and U.S. Supreme courts. The bill specifically states:
and the Supreme Court shall have no appellate jurisdiction, to hear or decide any question pertaining to the interpretation of, or the validity under the Constitution of, the […]

[Read more →]

This was a difficult subject to write about, so I chose the following approach:
First, you are a woman. You are accused and convicted of adultery.
Your hands are tied behind you. You are wrapped in a white sheet. You are buried up to your chest. Between the tightly packed earth and the […]

[Read more →]

…I found these destinations:
Mormons in the audience might be interested in a sneak peek at the redesign of the LDS Church website. I was pleasantly surprised to see that one of my favorite web designers acted as a consultant on the project.
How connected are you to your eco-region? Where does your water come from? […]

[Read more →]

I’m not opposed to the contemporary American notion of “traditional marriage.” After all, I’m (happily) participating in the institution. But I do have a problem with how the modern definition is presented as something timeless (and by extension, sacred), as if we could find the Cleavers in ancient Israel (”Gee Wally, guess it […]

[Read more →]

I get a lot of my inspiration in the wee hours of the morning. I lose a lot of them when I go back to sleep, satisfied that I just had a Great Thought. They say that everyone gets one or two million dollar ideas, and I’ve probably had mine already, buried forever […]

[Read more →]

Reading material for my week-long family-reunion/vacation:

My Name is Asher Lev by Chaim Potok.
No Turning Back: The History of Feminism and the Future of Women by Estelle Freedman

I read Potok’s The Chosen on a reunion trip to Colorado a few years ago, and it was life-changing. Several friends list My Name is Asher Lev as […]

[Read more →]

Driving down I-40 just outside of Chapel Hill, North Carolina, I decided to not (pleasantly) numb my brain with the radio-slash-iPod but to listen to my heart’s core instead. I came up with the mandate to increase a sense of the following for the next little while:
Generosity: I have a tendency to be […]

[Read more →]