Following the arrest last week of Warren Jeffs near Las Vegas, the editorial board of The Austin American-Statesman, an Austin, Texas newspaper, has issued a statement concerning Jeffs and his church, and its presence in Texas (hat tip: BCC news feed). (more…)

President Bush is making a visit tomorrow to Salt Lake City to deliver a speech to the convention of the American Legion. Salt Lake City mayor Rocky Anderson has promised an anti-Bush demonstration, calling “for an even larger protest than the rally he pushed last year for another Bush appearance” in Utah. Commentators on the local NPR affiliate, KUER, speculated this morning (8/29) that President Bush might have chosen to speak in Salt Lake City because polls have shown that support for him is higher in Utah than in other states. If this is true, then President Bush has made the classic mistake of assuming that Salt Lake City itself is representative of Utah; in fact, he and/or his staff might have even made the mistake of assuming that Salt Lake City was predominantly LDS, and that, based on the further mistaken assumption that all LDS would automatically be supportive of Bush, Salt Lake City would be a “safe” place for him to speak. (more…)

Nine months ago, I spotlighted a disturbing London Times article on this blog about botched abortion procedures in the United Kingdom. The Times story was about the approx. fifty babies who survive abortion procedures every year. We must realize, I suppose, that it is possible that more than this survive but are then killed as unwanted anyway. (more…)

The Mormon History Association, via Sunstone, is now selling session recordings of its recent conference in Casper on DVD, CD, MP3, and cassette (8-track not available).  One can purchase individual sessions or opt for the entire conference on CD or DVD.

According to the Deseret News:

MHA Best Book Award ($2000): Richard Bushman, Rough Stone Rolling

Smith-Pettit Best First Book Award ($1200): Robert S. Wicks and Fred R. Foister, Junius and Joseph: Presidential Politics and the Assassination of the First Mormon Prophet

Steven F. Christensen Award for Best Documentary/Bibliography ($1000): Devery S. Anderson and Gary James Bergera, Joseph Smith’s Quorum of the Anointed, 1842-1845: A Documentary History and The Nauvoo Endowment Companies, 1845-1846: A Documentary History

Turner-Bergera Award for Best Biography ($1000): Greg Prince and William Wright, David O. McKay and the Rise of Modern Mormonism (more…)

Just over a month ago, I noted that USU’s Mountain West Center for Regional Studies, which describes itself as ‘a humanities outreach center in the College of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences,’” had announced the 2005 winners of its Evans Biography Award and Handcart Award.  The Evans Biography Award went to Richard Bushman’s biography of Joseph Smith, Rough Stone Rolling, and the Handcart Award went to Gregory Prince and Wm. Robert Wright’s biography of David O. McKay, David O. McKay and the Rise of Modern Mormonism.

This Friday evening, the Mormon History Association will be announcing its 2006 award winners at its annual meeting in Casper, Wyoming, including the MHA Best Book Award, the Smith-Pettit Best First Book Award, the Steven F. Christensen Award for Best Documentary/Bibliography, the Ella Larsen Turner-Ella Ruth Turner Bergera Award for Best Biography, the J. Talmage Jones Awards of Excellence (”[a]warded for the two outstanding published articles on Mormon history”), and the T. Edgar Lyon Award for Best Article of the Year. (more…)