A wild scientific paper.  Full of interest.

In passing, “as many as 18% of modern individuals exhibit PFS disability.”  I can hardly believe it.  In fact I don’t, until I deal with people . . .

We had an emotional and spiritual home sacrament meeting.  Perhaps the best we’ve had so far.  We sang hymns, we had a flute and piano duet of Come Come Ye Saints, we watched two tremendous sermons, and I closed by talking about the golden thread.  Love was there.

We discovered after that it was likely our last one, weekly services start next week.  It seemed fitting.

Here are the videos.

This one was made into a church video.  I’d say the actual talk is better.  One of the best sermons I’ve seen.

Elder Holland is also tremendous.  Watch this talk for Pioneer Day.

Read the Basilisk at your earliest convenience. You should not read it as a horror story.

Don’t give up because of the second letter. Read it until the end. Ask yourself what would possess a woman to write like that?

Handgun people debate caliber, grip, aim, ammunition costs. But they all agree that the best gun is the one you will take with you.

(more…)

This systemic discrimination against toffs, boulevardiers, trust fund boys, and other young men who are more ornamental than productive has roused a sleeping giant, viz, the Drones Club. We are taking to the streets to have a stiff word with the management of this bally concern. We will be heard or we will give them what-for, I dare say!

Right ho, then. Let all willing to take a stand in favor of spats, espeglierie and the culinary standards to which we have become accustomed take aforesaid stand. No gelato, no peas!

Progeny: Ooh! If I named my son Saxon, then I could call his dog, ‘hey, you dog of a Saxon!’
Progenitor: Or you could call your son Wirthla. ‘Come here, Wirthla’s dog!”
Progeny [giggling through the pain]: I don’t think you are OK, dad.

It was the late Mr. Gilbert K. Chesterton who was led to observe that the deranged suffer not from a deficit of reason but from a deficit of everything else. On this, as in other matters, sir, I find him an invaluable guide.

Thank you, sir.

Then the voice spoke from the high mountain, commanding, “Build!”

And so they built. (more…)

Mr. Wooster is notable for his eleemosynary impulse. He may also have felt that some recent service I had occasion to render on his behalf deserved some expression of thanks. In consequence Mr. Wooster has kindly agreed to donate his Rex Kwan-Do ensemble to the deserving poor.

We seem to have stumbled into one of those patches of smooth water and sunlit sailing.

We are a very happy family right now. Absit omen, it is very good while it lasts. it is odd to say that we are happier now given the world falling apart around us. But so it is.

(more…)

We are excited to watch Poppy Hill when it gets here. John Mansfield got me with this:

This involvement connects to her relationship with her departed father, and the climax of the story takes the girl and a boy to the bridge of a ship in Yokohama harbor where its captain delays departure fifteen minutes to tell them of his admiration for their fathers, his friends that he remembers every day.

And so I have been thinking about the memories we leave behind us. I want my children to think of their time at home as the happy, golden years. That doesn’t come through indulgence. It comes through structure and discipline and light and love and water fights on the front grass.

Which brings me to eternity. (more…)

An old man had spent his life building his acres into a beautiful home. He had fruit trees, a house, some pasture, and everything cunningly laid out to be more productive and more beautiful. He had done it all himself. He had raised his children there.

One day in the warmth of the sun he was walking in his orchard and started to weep. His wife found him there. “What’s wrong,” she said.

“I was thinking about how our sons have left and don’t want to come back,” he said. “They’ll sale this place. Strangers will take it when I am gone.”

She loved him and wanted to cheer him up. “Well,” she said, “maybe they’ll love this place as much as you do.”

But he was not comforted.

Just as he prefers a carefully regulated diet and a low-risk career, so also he prefers the perceived safety of trusting what Studies Have Shown over taking a leap of faith. Just as he is content with a humdrum life, so is he content with a humdrum view of life. It has never occurred to him to aspire to be a god, and so the idea of God has little appeal.

-thus Wm. Jas.

On the 29th of June
a foreman of my own people,
men at work of my own people,
and the great machines we built,
knocked down the pines

not for timbers
not for hearths
but for being in the way

They pushed the soil tumbling
down the slope,
leveling,
the pale dirt and stones
from far underneath
not meant to be seen
now spilling broken out and pushed
then compacted

Coming Soon! Your Dollar Store!
For consumption was
the consumption wrought

Is there no end to debt
and spending and
obesity?

Heaven, raise the mountains up
and make the valleys low
again

The kids sang the Caisson song this morning while hanging bunting, the fries are frying, the flag is waving, the ice cream is churning, the sun is blazing, Washington is still my president. For today, all is right with the world.