I wrote the original piece over five years ago, pre-9/11 and after my first visit to the Museum of Tolerance. I cleaned it up and am reposting it here, a day after my second visit: I finally had the chance to go to the Museum of Tolerance today. My expectations were perhaps too high–it didn’t [...]

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Once a year, SF geeks gravitate towards each other to form a critical mass. This assemblage of nerdy particles is designated The World Science Fiction Convention, or WorldCon for short. Opposing this powerful attraction are the forces of Distance (last year’s was in Glasgow, Scotland, next year’s is in Yokohama, Japan) and High Prices ($200 [...]

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On Sunday our family is going to the Museum of Tolerance. If you’re interested in joining us, please email me at my mindonfire account (john@).

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This just in: we lost Pluto. Pluto has been demoted.¬† That nine planet solar system that served you well as a kid now has only eight planets. Maybe I’m the only one that thinks this is a big deal.¬† Well maybe not big.¬† A medium-sized deal. Nothing Earth (or even Pluto) shattering has occurred here.¬† [...]

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There’s an entertaining post by the newest contributor to the Sunstone Blog, Matt Thurston. He describes his ironic first encounter with a controversial biography of Joseph Smith while serving as a Mormon missionary in Taiwan. He then asks his readers to share their own first encounters with troubling Church history. Try as I might, I [...]

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The following quote is from an LA Times article covering the priesthood ordination and possible excommunication of fifteen Catholic women: Presiding over some of the ordinations were three European women recently consecrated as bishops in secret ceremonies allegedly led by five bishops who remain in good standing with the church. The identities of the male [...]

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I don’t have much time–Jana and I popped into the Salt Lake Roasting Company to quickly check our email.¬† We are such addicts.¬† I also wanted to squeeze in this post. I met a number of people who said very nice things about our blogs and our podcast.¬† You rock! Every last one of you! [...]

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Lamont defeats Lieberman! Makes me dang proud to be a radical liberal anti-war blogger. Unfortunately, Lieberman has vowed to do more damage to the Democratic Party as an independent. This one’s for Miko: Free Meditation Timer Download for Mac OS X! See, there is Nirvana-esque redemption for the Mac-addict. Two new blogs I’m reading regularly: [...]

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Today we remembered the many thousands of lives that were destroyed by the detonation of the atomic bomb over Hiroshima some sixty-one years ago–many were vaporized in an instant, others spent years dying slowly and painfully. The Irvine United Congregational Church, which I am considering more and more to be one of my several home [...]

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[This post grew from a comment I left on a discussion of female genital mutilation on Feminist Mormon Housewives.] In her book No Turning Back: The History of Feminism and the Future of Women, Estelle Freedman explores the reasons for and the fight against female gential cutting. Where Western opposition focused on violation of individual [...]

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