Two nights ago, my little daughter had a fever. She asked me if I could say “a boy prayer.”

“What’s a boy prayer?” I asked.

“It’s where you put your hands on my head and you say a prayer for me. Only boys can do them.”

I’m grateful for the restored power and authority to give boy prayers for my family.

The caption of the above photo by Gabrielle Shiowzawa in the Moapa Valley Progress reads, “Sierra Bunker works to start a fire with flint and steel while Micaela Leavitt looks on at LDS Logandale Stake Girl’s Camp last week.” That made me smile for reasons that may need a little explaining. (more…)

The Moapa Valley Progress reports on a stake young men’s activity:

“The group, organized by the LDS Logandale Stake, traveled via mountain bike cross-country from Caliente, Nevada, over and through the Mormon Mountain range, and ended near the Carp/Elgin exit at I-15.

“The bicyclists, and support staff in following trucks, traveled along an old mining road covering about 88 miles, and traversed an impressive total of about 6,969 climbing feet. Medical support and mechanical support were also provided the entire distance as the group accomplished the trip over three intense days.” (more…)

This part of Peter Beinart’s attempt to bring liberals to sanity on immigration stood out to me:

Between 2008 and 2016, Democrats became more and more confident that the country’s growing Latino population gave the party an electoral edge. To win the presidency, Democrats convinced themselves, they didn’t need to reassure white people skeptical of immigration so long as they turned out their Latino base. “The fastest-growing sector of the American electorate stampeded toward the Democrats this November,” Salon declared after Obama’s 2008 win. “If that pattern continues, the GOP is doomed to 40 years of wandering in a desert.”

The increasing aggression and stridency of the Left is not monocausal, but surely the sense that the Left didn’t need white voters anymore (specifically, white Christians) helps explain why even supposedly moderate lefties did almost nothing to rein in or dissociate themselves from the extremists on campus, in Black Lives Matter, etc.

I’ve mentioned before how the very possibility of divorce makes marriage itself worse. Marriage requires total dedication, a lot of compromise, and self-denial. And fidelity in marriage requires us not to even acknowledge that there are options besides sticking around. Once you commit to be with someone, you think of every reason why you should be with them. You cultivate the love that you have; you see your spouse through Marriage Goggles.

But once you start thinking about divorce, you take the Marriage Goggles off. You may even put Divorce Goggles on. This is how marriages end.

The Left and Right in this country used to at least try to live with one another. But then the Left’s eye began to wander to those younger, more exotic and exciting immigrants. They work so hard for such low wages! They appreciate the Left’s ideas in a way the Right never could! They make such delicious sandwiches!

But what happens when bringing someone new into the home doesn’t result in the eviction of the old spouse?

Out early this morning, I was fortunate to see a beautiful thin old moon. I first saw it before 4:30, three quarters of an hour after it rose, and an hour and a quarter before sunrise. The moon should be an aid to navigation, but I found it quite a distraction working my way through the roads leaving Dulles airport. Its shadowed side was centered at 2:30 relative to the horizon, and Venus was at the moon’s 1 o’clock. They were also striking in a different way at 5:20, after the sky had begun dawning.

Seeing the moon two days before its new phase of course brought the thought, “Only two more orbits until the eclipse.” So, any plans to catch some shade under the path of totality? For myself, I will spend the weekend camped on the shore of Lake Greenwood in South Carolina, five miles south of the central line. Lake Greenwood is also twenty-five miles from I-26 which crosses the state on a bearing remarkably close to that of the eclipse’s path, so depending on cloud forecasts, we may set out Monday morning for the coast near Charleston or the other way toward Tennessee. Totality reaches South Carolina in the afternoon 2:36:10 and departs her coast at 2:49:01.

For any thinking about what they want to do on Monday, August 21, here is a link to NASA’s helpful webpage: link and alternate link.