{"id":106089,"date":"2024-07-08T16:18:22","date_gmt":"2024-07-08T22:18:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/?p=106089"},"modified":"2024-07-08T16:54:11","modified_gmt":"2024-07-08T22:54:11","slug":"curious-last-words","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/2024\/07\/curious-last-words.html","title":{"rendered":"Curious Last Words"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>
\u00a0<\/p>\n
<\/a>
BYU\u2019s Gordon B. Hinckley Alumni and Visitors Center on the BYU campus
(Wikimedia Commons public domain image)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
Royal Skousen came to our house this morning for a pleasant visit and some business. \u00a0Please be aware of the following and, if you\u2019ll be in the area at the appropriate time, please mark the date and come! \u00a0Royal describes this as his \u201cswan song.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n
\n
\n
The Interpreter Foundation and BYU Studies Invite You to a Celebration<\/span><\/p>\n
The Completion of<\/span>
\nthe Book of Mormon Critical Text Project 1988-2024<\/span><\/p>\n
Saturday, August 10, 2024 1:00 \u2013 3:00 p.m.<\/span><\/p>\n
with two presentations open to the public<\/span><\/p>\n
Royal Skousen<\/span><\/p>\n
\u201cThe Innovative and Revolutionary Book of Mormon Critical Text Project\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n
Stanford Carmack<\/span><\/p>\n
\u201cThe Archaic Language<\/span>
\nof the Original Book of Mormon Text\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n
preceded by an informal open house with the presenters from 12 noon to 1:00 p.m.<\/span>
\nalong with a viewing of displays<\/span><\/p>\n
Gordon B. Hinckley Alumni Building Brigham Young University<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
<\/a>
Political map of Africa (public domain, Central Intelligence Agency). \u00a0Liberia (with Monrovia, named after President James Monroe, as its capital) is located on the southern coast of the continent\u2019s large western protrusion, between Sierra Leone and the C\u00f4te d\u2019Ivoire.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
I hope that many of you will enjoy this ten-minute video that has just been posted on the blog of the Interpreter Foundation. \u00a0(She is an impressive woman.) \u00a0Like all products of our Not by Bread Alone<\/em> effort, it has been done in both English and French: \u00a0\u201cNot by Bread Alone: A Woman of Faith: Sara Beysolow Nyanti, Foreign Minister of Liberia\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n
\n "
For more information on the \u201cNot by Bread Alone: Stories of the Saints in Africa\u201d series, go to https:\/\/notbybreadalonefilm.com\/en\/<\/a>*
*\nFor more information in French, go to https:\/\/notbybreadalonefilm.com\/fr\/<\/a>*
*\nTo see all of our posts about The Church in Africa, go to https:\/\/interpreterfoundation.org\/category\/africa\/<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n
"
In this short video from the \u201cNot by Bread Alone\u201d film series entitled \u201cA Woman of Faith Visits Salt Lake City,\u201d Sara Beysolow Nyanti, foreign minister of Liberia and former Assistant Secretary General of the UN, describes the personal impact of her experiences at Church headquarters on 27 June 2024. To read more about her visit, go to https:\/\/notbybreadalonefilm.com\/en\/6-a-woman-of-faith-sara-beysolow-nyanti<\/a>.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Of course, you can also find the video by going directly to the Christopher Hitchens Memorial \u201cHow Religion Poisons Everything\u201d File<\/em><\/a>\u2122, where an essentially infinite number of such appalling horrors can be found.<\/p>\n
Also new on the website of the Interpreter Foundation: \u00a0Interpreter Radio Show \u2014 June 30, 2024<\/a><\/p>\n
"
The 30 June 2024 episode of the Interpreter Radio Show, featured Martin Tanner and Terry Hutchinson, along with special guest Stephen Smoot during the second hour. They discussed Come, Follow Me <\/em>Book of Mormon lesson 30 and Joseph Smith\u2019s Uncanonized Revelations<\/em>, newly published by the BYU Religious Studies Center.<\/p>\n
Their conversation was recorded, and an edited version of it (liberated from commercial interruptions) has been archived and is now available to you at your convenience \u2014 and for free. \u00a0The \u201cBook of Mormon in Context\u201d portion of this show, for the Come, Follow Me<\/em> Book of Mormon lesson 30, will also be posted separately on Tuesday, 16 July 2024.<\/p>\n
The Interpreter Radio Show can be heard live each week on Sunday evenings from 7 to 9 PM (MDT), on K-TALK, AM 1640, or you can listen live on the Internet at ktalkmedia.com<\/a>.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
<\/a>
Eric Clapton (left), Sam Kinison (center), and Phil Collins (right) at The Comedy Store, on the Sunset Strip in West Hollywood, sometime in the 1980s. (Wikimedia Commons public domain image)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
Some of you, if you\u2019re old enough, may recall a Grammy-award-winning stand-up comedian by the name of Sam Kinison<\/a> (1953-1992). \u00a0Truth be told, I wasn\u2019t a particular fan of his \u2014 rather the contrary, if anything, because I found his comedic style too crude, loud, and crass for my taste \u2014 but I\u2019m intrigued by this story about him:<\/p>\n
On 4 April 1992, twice-divorced and finally (he said) emerging from the cocaine and alcohol abuse that had nearly derailed his career, he married his third wife (a Vegas dancer) at the Candlelight Chapel in Las Vegas.\u00a0 He and his bride then spent five days in Hawaii on a honeymoon\u00a0before returning home to Los Angeles on 10 April. \u00a0He was scheduled for a sold-out show that night at the Riverside Resort Hotel and Casino in Laughlin, Nevada.<\/p>\n
Later that day, on 10 April 1992, Kinison and his new wife were on the Needles Highway \u2014 northwest of Needles, California \u2014 when they were hit head-on by a pickup truck. \u00a0The driver of the pick-up was a seventeen-year-old by the name of Troy Pierson, who had been drinking with another teenager as they raced along that desert road. \u00a0(He had been drinking alcohol, if you hadn\u2019t already guessed. \u00a0The cab of the pick-up was reportedly filled with empty beer cans.)\u00a0 Pierson crossed the center line of the roadway while trying to pass another vehicle and collided with the Kinisons\u2019 oncoming Pontiac Turbo Trans Am. \u00a0\u201cGod!\u201d witnesses say he exclaimed after the wreck. \u00a0\u201cLook what happened to my truck!\u201d<\/sup><\/p>\n
Kinison\u2019s new wife suffered a concussion in the crash. \u00a0Unconscious, she was taken for treatment to a hospital in Needles, where she recovered. \u00a0As to Sam Kinison himself, his head had smashed into the windshield because he had not been wearing his seat belt. \u00a0Still, though, at the first, he appeared to be pretty much alright. \u00a0He seemed to have received only minor facial wounds, mostly on his lips and on his forehead.\u00a0<\/sup> He got out of his heavily damaged vehicle, sat down on the side of the road, and only stretched out after friends persuaded him to do so.<\/p>\n
He died not long thereafter from traumatic internal injuries (including, as an autopsy later showed, a dislocation in the cervical spine, a torn aorta, damage in his cranium, and torn blood vessels in his abdominal cavity). \u00a0He was just 38 years old.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s a tragic story, but it\u2019s only one more entry in the lengthy list of such often unnecessary sorrows. \u00a0Here, though, is where the story (to me, at least) grows especially interesting:<\/p>\n
According to an article that appeared in the Los Angeles Times<\/em> soon after the fatal accident, a friend \u2014 Carl LaBove, Kinison\u2019s longtime opening act \u2014 who was there at the accident scene after having watched what happened from another following car, held Kinison\u2019s bleeding head in his hands until it was over. \u00a0\u201cI don\u2019t want to die, I don\u2019t want to die,\u201d Kinison said. \u00a0And then followed some quite enigmatic last words, spoken to nobody in particular: \u00a0\u201cWhy now?\u201d he inquired. \u00a0Then he paused. \u00a0\u201cBut why?\u201d he asked. \u00a0Then, after yet another pause, he very peacefully said \u201cOkay, okay, okay.\u201d \u00a0LaBove, who reported those final utterances, commented, \u201cWhatever voice was talking to him gave him the right answer and he just relaxed with it.\u201d<\/sup><\/p>\n
If Carl LaBove\u2019s report is accurate, it does seem that Sam Kinison was engaged in a conversation, a conversation of which the reporting friend heard only one side.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
\u00a0 Royal Skousen came to our house this morning for a pleasant visit and some business. \u00a0Please be aware of the following and, if you\u2019ll be in the area at the appropriate time, please mark the date and come! \u00a0Royal describes this as his \u201cswan song.\u201d The Interpreter Foundation and BYU Studies Invite You to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1019,"featured_media":106092,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[1104,37782,37785,37776,37779,1588],"class_list":["post-106089","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-death","tag-liberia","tag-needles","tag-sam-kinison","tag-sara-beysolow-nyanti","tag-united-nations"],"yoast_head":"\nCurious Last Words<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\" Royal Skousen came to our house this morning for a pleasant visit and some business. 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