Over at A Bird’s Eye View, I’ve been having a conversation in comments with John Fowles. In one comment, John castigates a student who made a remark that he viewed as derogatory towards Mormons. John writes: “If she is ‘liberal’ doesn’t that mean she is supposed to be ‘sensitive’? Or does that only mean she is sensitive to the favored social causes and minorities and intolerant towards others?” Ahh, where to begin? Read More

The patron saint of the New Mormon History – Leonard Arrington – started his academic life as an economist, but interestingly economists have been on the whole absent from Mormon studies. Given the presence of philosophers, sociologists, and – of course – gobs of historians, the lack of followers of the dismal science is striking. Read More

Belgium, December 29, 2004. For days now I have been confronted with TV-images of bloated and rotting bodies littered along shores, of parents crying over the corpses of their children, of living children staring dumbfounded into a camera and holding up a note with their name and the question “Seen parents?” – while it is almost certain, after three days, they have become orphans. Thousands of orphans and they still cling to their note. Read More

As a father of two teenagers with three more children in the pipeline, I have received — and continue to receive — plenty of parenting advice. One bit of advice that I hear over and over is this: pick your battles. Standing in the middle of this experience, I haven’t yet decided whether this advice is merely self-evident encouragement, truly insightful parenting counsel, or complete hogwash. I am leaning toward the hogwash hypothesis. Read More

Here is an empirical claim for which I have no support, other than my own observations: many Mormons inappropriately mystify revelation. Read More

Judge Richard Posner — one of the most influential judges of the past several decades — is guest blogging on professor Brian Leiter’s blog. His first post deals with faith-based morality and how this affects public policy. (A topic that T & S readers will recognize as familiar — we discuss it a lot around here). Judge Posner suggests that: “If the population is religious, religion will influence morality, which in turn will influence law, subject to constitutional limitations narrowly interpreted to protect the handful of rights that ought not to be at the mercy of the majority.” Instead of… Read More

In case you haven’t heard, President Hinckley will appear on Larry King Live tonight. Read More

We watched Mr. Krueger’s Christmas a few nights ago. It’s not half bad. Read More

Very little regarding Christmas happens in the Smith household without my wife’s instigation. Although I enjoy our Christmas traditions, I too often free-ride on her efforts. Read More

After you try your hand at composing a haiku, take a chance on writing a Christmas story. All you have to do is supply the ending: a crotchety old cop is assigned to supervise a Christmas shopping trip for two needy kids, and after grudgingly performing the act of service he finds himself Read More

Occasionally, the contented boredom of Sunday School classes is broken up by disagreements and strained but mild-mannered arguments over the fate of the sons of perdition, spirit fluid, and the like. It used to get a bit more heated. Read More

Unless you’ve been living in a cave for the past twenty years, you’ve probably heard of Orson Scott Card. He’s a Mormon author who primarily writes science fiction. And he’s a very good author — to this day, his best work, Ender’s Game (which won Hugo and Nebula awards) is considered one of the better sci-fi novels of the past quarter century. Of course, Card’s Mormon background raises the question of what we can learn by viewing Ender’s Game as Mormon literature. Read More

In this time of the year, we hear lots of Christmas songs. There’s one song in particular that I’ve come to enjoy hearing around Christmas, though at one time I never thought this would be possible. The song is “Navidad Sin Ti” by the Ranchera music group (essentially country music in Spanish) Los Bukis. Read More

I cannot remember when Brother H. came to our branch for the first time. Somewhere in the late seventies or early eighties. A middle-aged man, single, not too tall, graying hair, with lips drawn between an angelic and an ironic smile. Was he brought in by the missionaries or did he find us? I am not sure anymore. I tend to think the latter. Read More

Ours is was broken. Now it’s better. Thanks, as usual, to Bryce for able assistance. If anyone continues to have problems with the RSS feed, please make a note in comments, or send an e-mail. Thanks. Read More

I just noticed (via A Soft Answer) a new bloggernacle aggregation blog — Planet LDS, at KZION. The site includes feeds from almost 50 bloggernaclites, including Times and Seasons. Techies will note that this aggregation is identical to what anyone can do with an aggregator (for example, the free one at Bloglines). However, Planet LDS’s pre-set aggregation blog is a useful fill-in for any readers too busy, lazy, or Luddite to set up their own aggregators. Caveat: For those who don’t know, let me note that there is an important limitation if you’re reading Planet LDS instead of setting up… Read More

This does not sound like fun. Then again, that’s to be expected at the ward Christmas party. Read More

I want to thank Times and Seasons for the opportunity to blog over the past two weeks. Read More

On an earlier thread, someone opined that I am precisely the sort of snob for whom it is impossible to select a musical gift that will be appreciated. I want to report that two brilliant, generous and very thoughtful friends have actually done it, even without reference to an Amazon wish list. The CD is Saints Bound for Heaven, recorded by a Mormonish group called Ephraim’s Harp in NYC, and it’s great stuff. Read More

We’ve already discussed our moral obligations to the very very young. Now I’d like to talk about our obligations to the very very old. Read More

Speaking of Mormon masculinity, once-Mormon playwright Neil Labute premiered his new play this week, Fat Pig. Read More

One of the great benefits of having Nate Oman and Frank McIntyre as regular bloggers here at T&S is that they can rapidly and thoroughly devastate the flakey assumptions which underlie my repetetive calls for social arrangements which prioritize public goods and community maintenance over individual choice and economic growth. This is a good thing: it’s good to be corrected by people who have more knowledge than you, and it’s good to be humbled. I’m confident this post will continue in that tradition. Read More