Elise Soukup works as an Assistant Editor for Newsweek Magazine. She recently authored a cover story on the LDS Church and Joseph Smith for the magazine, titled
Mormon Odyssey. You can buy the issue at newstands everywhere. Elise is an active member of the Church, and lives in Manhattan.

First of all, congratulations on such a visible accomplishment in journalism. How did it feel to find out you’d be writing the Newsweek cover, and have things gotten any busier since then?

Thank you very much. I can say that this has been a particularly crazy week; I’m not usually scheduling my day around radio–and Mormon blog–interviews.

Continue reading →

We drove over the weekend to help with Hurricane Katrina cleanup in Pascagula, Mississippi.

Continue reading →

Pat Robertson and other evangelicals believe that recent disasters mean we are probably in the beginning of the end times. I attach this article with no editorial comment.

Davis’ post on singles wards reminded me of a tale – a tale involving the summer I attended the local singles ward. This is a tale of why I am going to hell. Or the telestial kingdom. Whatever.

I was either 20 or 21. My sister, 2 years younger, also decided to join me in attending that ward. We clung to each other, observing the bizarre culture that makes up the singles ward, mocking it and discussing the insanity. The mocking isn’t why I’m going to hell. I mean, sure, it probably plays a role, but it’s not the big one.

Continue reading →

I’m pretty sure this is news that will interest everybody: U.S. control of the internet may be about to end.

I have no idea how this will affect anything, although I am suspicious of new bureaucracies getting involved in the highly free-wheeling and successful world of the net. The story seems to say there are many unknowns.

People with more technical savvy than myself may have some input, but here is my guess: today, most of the technical decisions regarding the internet are made in the United States because it was invented here. In the future, these decisions will be made by international committees. This is how it works in the telecom world, by the way. A lot of telecom technology was invented in the United States, and international bodies have standardized this technology for the last few decades (so that people can call each other from one country to the other). If so, this change for the internet could have positive impacts. But if we end up with UN-style bureaucracy getting in the way of the internet, we all will rue the day this happened.