Dave's Mormon Inquiry

How to Get Rich Using Clever Blog Post Titles

Hey, I just write the text; some guy in editing writes the headlines. There are 435 posts from 63 LDS blogs in my Google Reader. Since I don't have 18 hours to invest at the moment, I'm going to pick the post titles I like best. Titles really matter in this business. Be clever.

The best of the batch: We kill because we care at BCC. Awesome title; okay post.

Ehrman Strikes Again

I just put Bart Ehrman's new book, God's Problem, in my featured book box to the right. I've enjoyed every book of Ehrman's that I have read. I'll post on it when I finish reading the book.

A Bastion of Mormonism

Being mildly depressed about blogging at the moment, I decided to go trolling for a "good news" story to post. Here it is, a story about SVU from the SL Trib: "A bastion of Mormonism in Virginia's Blue Ridge Mountains."

You Should Write More Letters

You never know what they'll be worth someday: "Einstein Letter on God Sells for $404,000."

Faith and Fame

Faith and fame aren't always an easy mix, but Mormons who hit the big time seem to be able to hold it together most of the time. At least that's the thrust of "How Mormons Deal With Fame" at the LDS Newsroom, discussing, among other names we all recognize, the 17-year-old phenom David Archuleta.

Love Thy Neighbor ... or Not

I don't read to the end of many online essays anymore -- either most writing is dull and pointless or I have developed blog-induced attention deficit disorder, you decide which. But I read "Love Thy Neighbor: The religion beat in an age of intolerance" at the Columbia Journalism Review start to finish (hat tip: Get Religion).

Apostasy and the Dark Ages

Do these concepts have anything to do with each other? Apparently some Mormons think they do, hence Davis Bitton's corrective essay "How Dark Were the Dark Ages?" (conveniently reposted at Meridian Magazine).

Mother's Day is Looming

And for thousands of Latter-day Saints who will be delivering a Mother's Day talk tomorrow, it is looming large. Expectations are high and scriptural sources are limited.

Newsroom on the Sidebar

While poking around the LDS Newsroom yesterday I discovered they now have an RSS feed, which I promptly loaded into my right sidebar (and anyone else can easily do so too). Any other nifty features that any readers have stumbled on lately at LDS.org or at the Newsroom? And as long as I'm being experimental, I'm going to try embedding (love that term) one of the Newsroom videos, an excerpt from Elder Ballard's "New Media" talk at BYU-H a few months ago:

Monster in the Mirror

There are 467 posts from 63 blogs in my Google Reader, with three new LDS blogs added in the last cycle: Keep-A-Pitchinin (by Ardis from T&S), The Mormon Organon (by a BYU biology prof), and Lehi's Library (by some guy named James). Below is my favorite post of the week and a few other notable posts.

My favorite and post of the week was Mormons as Monsters by Natalie at BCC. "Imagine my horror when [my students] decided they wanted to write on Mormons as examples of contemporary monsters." Not what we like to hear from the up and coming generation. Natalie notes, with admirable understatement, that this "indicates to me that as a church we are still failing to win the PR battle," and suggests a more open and public treatment of troubling historical issues as a partial remedy. I suppose the student opinions also indicate something about the students, the power of popular culture, and the ubiquity of scapegoating. Or projection. Or the Other. Or whatever it is that makes people see groups they regard as being different somehow equivalently being undesirable, detestable, or simply evil. Anyway, the post is a nice reminder about how some people still view us Mormons.

Intelligent Design: Coming to a Theater Near You

Get Religion has a nice post on the new documentary Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed. It stars Ben Stein, the face you instantly associate with the following phrase: "Bueller? Bueller?" The point of GR's post is that the media is largely ignoring the documentary despite a strong showing at the box office — apparently because the message of the documentary doesn't resonate with the left-leaning media, whereas any stupid thing Michael Moore or Al Gore puts out gets instant coverage and even critical acclaim. I'm no fan of ID, but I think rabid evolutionists that want to shut down discussion of alternative ideas don't deserve the deference they get from the media. Anyone seen this movie yet?