Ice Cream Among the Health Foods
Here’s a really important scientific discovery — and, I think, persuasive evidence that the cultural practices of American Latter-day Saints are true: “Ice cream might have surprising health benefits, Harvard research suggests: The frozen treat might be good for your heart”
Mann tracht un Gott lacht is an old Yiddish proverb that means “Man Plans and God Laughs.” I was scheduled to be down in southern California by about now. I was to speak at my sister-in-law’s funeral in San Gabriel on Friday and then, thereafter, to visit with people in Santa Barbara on Saturday and to speak two or three times there in Santa Barbara on Sunday. Alas, though, my house has been a den of illness over the past week or two. After heroic resistance on my heroic part, it suddenly began to hit me after dinner. Now we’re all sick. And today, about noon, one of us (though not yet all of us) tested positive for COVID-19. So the fireside and other activities in Santa Barbara have been cancelled and I’ll miss the funeral for my brother’s widow. I’m very disappointed, and I’m terribly, terribly sorry to mess up the events that have long been planned in Santa Barbara. My most hardcore critics will take deep pleasure in this, though: I feel physically miserable.
Here are three new items from the Interpreter Foundation. I hope that you occasionally take the time to enjoy at least a few of these:
Conference Talks: “How John’s Gospel Portrays Jesus as the Way of the Temple,”presented by John S. Thompson
This talk was given on Saturday, 25 October 2014, as part of the Interpreter Foundation’s 2014 Temple on Mount Zion Conference
The New Testament in Context Lesson 18: “I Am the Good Shepherd”: John 7–10
In the 2 April 2023 Come, Follow Me segment of the Interpreter Radio Show, Neal Rappleye, Jasmin Rappleye, Spencer Kraus, and Hales Swift discuss New Testament lesson 18, “I Am the Good Shepherd” covering John 7–10.
The other segments of the 2 April 2023 radio show can be accessed at https://interpreterfoundation.org/interpreter-radio-show-april-2-2023.
The Interpreter Radio Show can be heard every Sunday evening from 7 to 9 PM (MDT), on K-TALK, AM 1640. If, for some reason, that doesn’t for you — perhaps because you aren’t in the Salt Lakc Valley — you can listen live on the Internet at ktalkmedia.com.
As he regularly does, Jonn Claybaugh has prepared a concise set of notes for followers of the Interpreter Foundation who are students and/or teachers of the Church’s “Come, Follow Me” curriculum: Come, Follow Me — New Testament Study and Teaching Helps: Lesson 18, April 24 — 30: John 7–10 — “I Am the Good Shepherd”
Here’s a really important scientific discovery — and, I think, persuasive evidence that the cultural practices of American Latter-day Saints are true: “Ice cream might have surprising health benefits, Harvard research suggests: The frozen treat might be good for your heart”
And, if the word of the Deseret News isn’t good enough for you, consider this recent article in The Atlantic that was written by David Merritt Johns: “Nutrition Science’s Most Preposterous Result: Studies show a mysterious health benefit to ice cream. Scientists don’t want to talk about it.”
This development puts me in mind of a scene from Woody Allen’s 1973 film Sleeper:
Dr. Melik: This morning for breakfast he requested something called “wheat germ, organic honey and tiger’s milk.”
Dr. Aragon: [chuckling] Oh, yes. Those are the charmed substances that some years ago were thought to contain life-preserving properties.
Dr. Melik: You mean there was no deep fat? No steak or cream pies or . . . hot fudge?
Dr. Aragon: Those were thought to be unhealthy . . . precisely the opposite of what we now know to be true.
Dr. Melik: Incredible.
I now share with you a few links on a topic of current heated controversy:
“The New York Times fabricates a history of the transgenderist culture war”
“Damning Leak Reveals Matt Walsh Knew What A Woman Was This Whole Time”
“Male Athlete Barred from Competing in Australian Women’s Basketball League”
“Hasbro Introduces New ‘Transition Me Elmo’ Doll”
“Girl Too Young For Tattoo Offered Irreversible Gender Surgery”
“Transgenderism Is the New Blackface: If blackface is racist, then ‘womanface’ is sexist.”
And, well, what the heck: “Mormon Wishes He Drank Beer So He Could Boycott Bud Light”
You will notice, perhaps, that I’ve interspersed satirical articles here with serious articles. There was no deliberate design in this. I simply couldn’t reliably tell them apart.
I was really pleased to see this story; moreover, I knew the founders of the Cairo Branch and was happy to see something of their history in print in the Church News: “Elder Uchtdorf Visits Cairo’s English and Arabic Branches: Combined sacrament meeting evidence of ‘universal gospel of Jesus Christ and the global Church of Jesus Christ,’ Apostle says”
And now, in closing, I offer a infuriating trio of links that I’ve recently found in the Christopher Hitchens Memorial “How Religion Poison Everything” File™:
And, in case you’ve missed it, here’s a place where you yourself can do research in an important sector of the Hitchens File™: “Follow New Platforms to Stay Informed on Church’s Humanitarian Efforts Worldwide: Caring.ChurchofJesusChrist.org and @caring.churchofjesuschrist on Facebook and Instagram generate awareness, encourage participation”
