BYU football continues to roll. The first place Cougs were in Colorado today taking on the second place Air Force Falcons. It was supposed to be a tough game. It wasn’t. BYU pummeled the cadets, racking up a 21-0 lead in the first half and cruising to a 33-14 win after that. The way things are going right now, a 10-2 season is looking more and more feasible. BYU seems to be playing at a much higher level than anyone else in the MWC right now.

Bronco Mendenhall’s approach seems to be really paying dividends in his second season as head coach. I’m beginning to suspect he has the word “execution” tatooed on the inner eyelids of his players or something because that is all any of these guys talk about. The beauty of this near-robotic approach is that the Cougs really do seem to improve week to week. It is at the point now that if the Cougs do indeed “execute” their assignments and game plans they are almost assured a 10-2 season. That is terrific news if you are a Cougar fan. (more…)

“Kidnapping Charges Bring Unwanted Attention.” What a strange headline, but then this is a strange story. As recounted in the Deseret News article, a Utah couple appeared in court yesterday “accused of kidnapping [their] 21-year-old daughter” and “driving her to Colorado on the eve of her wedding.” The story notes that the couple “brought their daughter back [to Utah] the next day after she told them she wouldn’t marry her fiance. The engaged couple was married just days later in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints’ Salt Lake Temple and are now expecting their first child.” Then this critical point: “In a previous interview, [the daughter] told the Deseret Morning News she and her husband have not talked with her parents since they brought her back.”

There are also stories in the SL Trib (”Couple, accused of ‘bride-napping’ their daughter, in court“) and an AP story at Yahoo News (”Couple in court in bride-napping case“). The SL Trib story clarifies the sequence of events: The bride “persuaded her parents to drive her back, promising she wouldn’t contact [the groom], but they arrived after the wedding was supposed to take place, according to police reports. The couple married three days later without [the bride’s] parents attending.”

America’s newspaper of record, The New York Times, today picks up two unrelated history-related stories out of Utah, instantly giving them broader importance. 

The first story concerns the LDS Church’s apparent decision to replace some of the Tabernacle’s original pews–which were made of pine but finished to look like oak–with, oddly enough, oak reproductions (see the Messenger & Advocate’s coverage here). 

The second story surrounds the battle in Salt Lake City over the future of the Deseret Bank Building, a classic skyscraper completed in 1919.  In early October, church officials announced that that the structure would be demolished in November to be replaced with a brand new office building.  Recently, however, church officials have stated that the decision is being revisited.  Negative public reaction to the original announcement seems to have played a key role in the latest developments (I covered the details here).

What’s interesting about the Times‘ coverage is the emotion that the reporter injects into the story.   (more…)

The New Jersey Supreme Court has essentially punted on the issue of so called “gay marriage.” I don’t have time to provide as detailed an analysis at this time as I did on the recent California appellate court opinion here; but, I am posting some relevant parts of the court’s synopsis. You can read the entire opinion here or here. (more…)

I wrote a post a while back on Nine Moons detailing a recent New York court decision which concluded that, under the recently reformed Bankruptcy Code, paying your creditors must take precedence over payment of tithing/charitable contributions. (more…)