Sent in my proposal to present a paper, “The “Ever Memorable Day’: The Journals of Mary Ann Burnham Freeze, An Introduction” at the Utah State History 2010 Annual Conference. The work on her journals is one of the reasons I’m in Utah enjoying the beautiful spring weather:
I don’t think I would have done this, or even known about it, had I still been in Minneapolis. I have become a little less stuck here.
Another part of my reasoning for the move:
Guess I’m Mr. Multi-media today.
Finally it remains to be mentioned that with man sexual gratification is tied to a very obstinate selectivity which is sometimes intensified into a more or less passionate love. Thus sexuality becomes for man a source of brief pleasure and protracted suffering.
Arthur Schopenhauer
“On the Suffering of the World”
A beautiful, sunny afternoon: 
High white mountain sun
Sears the summer air sterile,
A parched trail descends.
We waited for the weather to clear at a place called Oishida, intending to sail down the Mogami River. People told us that the seeds of the old haikai poetry had been scattered here, and people still recalled nostalgically the unforgotten, long-ago days of its glory; the rustic notes of a reed pipe brought music to their hearts. “We are groping for the right path, uncertain which to follow, the old or the new, but there is no one to guide us on our way,” they said, and I had no choice but to compose with them a scroll of poems.
Basho
The Narrow Road to Oku
Promiscuous women are responsible for earthquakes according to senior Iranian cleric Hojatoleslam Kazem Sedighi. He told worshippers in Tehran last Friday that they had to stick to strict codes of modesty to protect themselves. "Many women who do not dress modestly lead young men astray and spread adultery in society which increases earthquakes," he said. Mr. Sedighi was delivering a sermon on the need for a "general repentance" by Iranians. "What can we do to avoid being buried under the rubble? There is no other solution but to take refuge in religion and to adapt our lives to Islam's moral codes," he said. Glad we got that cleared up.
Finished four books this week:
Sergeant Nibley, PhD Hugh Nibley
I knew Nibley a little when I lived out here in the 70s and 80s, and I worked tangentially with him against the Vietnam war. He had referred obliquely a few times to his experiences in WWII, so I was really interested to read this book by him and his son Alex. It was a lot more work than it needed to be because it is very poorly organized and crowded with unnecessary pictures and sidebars. I guess the editor thought it needed to be dumbed down for the Mormon readers even though it pretends to be for a non-Mormon audience as well. Still glad I worked my way through it. He still means a great deal to me in my intellectual and spiritual development.
If the Dead Rise Not Philip Kerr
Latest in the Bernie Gunther series, number 6. Now he’s in Cuba, but most of the book takes place during 1934. Again Kerr’s sleek prose that slips us through the narrative. His pre-war and Third Reich world is good history as well as compelling fiction. Really liked it. Hope he keeps writing them.
God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything Christopher Hitchens
“Read” this as an audio book, and it was great listening to Hitchens read his own prose as I drove around in my Beetle. He loves to skewer people and our preconceptions, so there is a glee in this book as well as some good insights and history. But he is not a philosopher, and his arguments wind around a little even though they are, for the most part, right on the money. Very good, really glad I read it.
Bhagavad Gita translated by Stephen Mitchell
A beautiful and profoundly spiritual text that has changed the way I see the world. This, more than any other “sacred” text I have read, seems purely spiritual and conveys an understanding of life. I am not comfortable with the Lord/God references except that they can be understood to portray a reverence for the foundation of existence throughout the universe, which I loved. Also loved the clarity and simple beauty of Mitchell’s translation.
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A 4.9 is a "light" earthquake, according to Kristine Pankow, associate director of the University of Utah Seismograph Stations. It wouldn't be enough to knock people over, but people would feel it, she said. However, it was the largest quake since 1992, she said. On average, Utah gets an earthquake of about magnitude 5 every 10 years. The Crawford Fault runs through the Randolph area. The entire Interstate 15 corridor is a seismically active area. People in Salt Lake City, 78 miles from the epicenter, felt the quake. There were reports of buildings -- especially several-story structures -- swaying and light fixtures rattling. 
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