Times and Seasons is my main way of wasting time these days, but I do have other vices, one of them being chess. Read More

Pray for the peace of Jerusalem: they shall prosper that love thee. (Psalms 122:6) News reports are rampant with rumors that Yasir Arafat is either dead, in a coma or on life support. What seems certain is that Arafat’s end is nigh. Read More

This is off-topic, but I thought I’d put in a word for the 9/11 Commission Report. Read More

George W. Bush, in my mind, is very much like Bill Clinton. Both men seem to have the ability to make otherwise sane people on the other side of the political fence become nutcases. Read More

I have generally avoided posting on same-sex marriage, and I am not attempting to initiate another debate on the merits. But I believe that one of the huge stories of the presidential election will be the importance of this issue. While most people I know thought this election would be a referendum on the war in Iraq, it now appears that the tipping issue may have been same-sex marriage. More on my other blog. Read More

Our internet host is having some problems keeping up with traffic on this incredibly busy day. The problem is exacerbated since they’re also hosting some official election supervisor sites in Florida. We’ve had one hiccough so far today — about an hour and a half of down time — and we may see more. Just an FYI. Read More

Nate’s post on the Sabbath returns me to some thoughts on the Sabbath I’ve been kicking around for a while. Earlier this fall, as I was looking for music for my ward choir to do, I considered Healey Willan’s setting of “O Quanta Qualia.” The text is as follows: Oh, what their joys and their glories must be, Those endless sabbaths the blessed ones see, Crown for the valiant, to weary ones rest, God shall be all and in all ever blest. Read More

We’ve been getting a ton of spam lately from a new batch of spammers using new .info sites. So I just added a general moderation rule for any .info sites. I also added a specific unblock for danithew’s site — his posts should go through okay. I don’t think we have any other real commenters who use .info sites. If so, I can unblock them as well. (And this isn’t a true block, it just directs these comments into the moderation queue for individual approval or deletion). Read More

Let your moderation be known unto all men. The Lord is at hand. (Phillipians 4:5) We have often heard the saying “moderation in all things.” But the words moderate, moderation and moderately only appear sparingly in the scriptures and the phrase “moderation in all things” does not appear at all. Then again, on second glance, this may simply be an interpretive or editorial choice. The King James Version prefers the words tempered, temperate and temperance and the Book of Mormon follows the KJV’s example. Thus we see the phrase “temperate in all things” more than once scripturally (1 Corinthians 9:25,… Read More

One of the points of contention between believers and skeptics has to do with the question of morality. Roughly speaking, the exchange goes something like this: Believer: God is the source of morality. Without a belief in God one cannot have a belief in morality. Therefore skeptics are immoral. QED. Skeptic: Nonsense! There are lots of skeptics who behave in thoroughly ethical ways. Furthermore, they mold their behavior to conform with particular ethical standards, even though those standards lack any particular theological foundation. One can clearly be a skeptic and be a moral person. Framed in these terms (and I… Read More

We had an excellent discussion of reverence in our combined Priesthood-Relief Society meeting yesterday. At the end of the meeting, I made a comment which provoked mixed reactions after the meeting, and now I am wondering about that comment. Read More

Is there anything more fun than a casting game? You know, “who would be the perfect actor to play Joseph Smith?” or “who would be some good actors for a Book of Mormon movie“? And now, ladies and gents, we have new fuel for the fire. You’ve all seen the pictures of the blog party (in its various nicknames three). And you now know what most of us look like. That brings us to the fun part: In Bloggernacle, The Movie, who will be the actors and actresses playing whom? Read More

The metaphor of a marriage is often used to describe the relationship between the Savior and His Church. The Savior is the Bridegroom and the Church is the Bride. This metaphor is useful because the Church can instruct husbands that they should love their wives with all their hearts; to be willing to give up their lives for their wives just as the Savior gave his life for the Church. This metaphor also has other potential applications, pointing towards the festivities that will take place when The Bridegroom and The Bride ultimately unite in their bond of holy matrimony. Read More

Thanks to the macinations of the plaintiff’s attorneys, I am spending most of my sabbath today ensconsed in my office with the Bankruptcy Code. For better or for worse, I have a job where Sundays at work are hardly unexpected and although I do my best to avoid them, it isn’t really possible to work at a K Street law firm and completely miss out on this particular fringe benefit. What is the precise scope of my sabbath violations and do I have any defenses? Read More

7YO: What if Korihor was a talking bat? Me: (Trying not to laugh) Umm, what? 7YO: He would die! Me: Oh? 7YO: Yep — because bats see with their ears, and they have to use sonar. And so Korihor couldn’t use any more sonar after he got cursed. Can’t argue with that, can I? Read More

The blog party at D’s was a great success. It was quite interesting to put faces to names. (Kristine’s reaction when Steve Evans introduced himself: “No you’re not!”). We had a lot of people there: D, Kristine, Steve and Sumer, Mat and Gigi Parke, Logan and Amy Bobo, Bob Caswell, Christina Taber-Kewene & Manahi, Chris Williams and wife (I didn’t get her name) and daughter, JL (Celibate in the city) and her sister, Rusty Clifton and Sara, Davis Bell, Jim Lucas, Mark Butler & his wife. I was also there, along with Mardell and the kids. There was good food… Read More

This afternoon, renowned historian (and former T & S guest-blogger) Richard Bushman was the speaker at a meeting of the J Reuben Clark society in New York. The event was held at a reputable law firm in midtown. Brother Bushman discussed Joseph Smith and how politics was viewed in the early church. He suggested that the divide between politics and religion — and the related tension between republican values and prophetic values — has played an important role throughout the church’s history. Read More

Last night on the NewsHour with Jim Lehrer there was a segment with Tom Frank, the author of What’s the Matter with Kansas?: How Conservatives Won the Heart of America. Frank argues that conservatives have successfully used cultural issues to con the lower and middle classes into voting against what Frank believes to be their “economic self-interest.” It’s probably the leading explanation for the migration of the middle class away from the Democratic party. A smart Democratic friend of mine from church recently used it while lamenting Mormons’ support for Republicans. The NewsHour invited conservative David Frum, one of Bush’s… Read More

NEW PRODUCT ANNOUNCEMENT FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE AUSTIN, Texas – October 28, 2004 – Smith Industries LLC today proudly announces the release of their latest product, Child 3.0. Also known as “Truman Michael Smith,� Child 3.0 has been under development for nine months and arrives just in time for the holiday season. Read More

I’m sure many of you have wondered how things work here at Times and Seasons. The crack legal minds here have managed to thwart all attempts by independent journalists to obtain documents via the Freedom of Information Act, but for some reason they’ve allowed a relative unknown in their midst without performing a thorough and complete background check. So to repay them for their kindness, I’m turning Paul O’Neill on them and giving the inside story they’re so desperate to keep from you. Read More

I grew up in a home where politics were never discussed. It’s not as though we didn’t have fascinating and stimulating dinnertime conversations (the most heated ones were always about English usage). We just never talked about the issues of the day. Consequently, I had little understanding of the political landscape of our country. When I was a freshman in high school, the first assignment I had in my social studies class was to compare and contrast the terms “liberal” and “conservative.” To complete the assignment, I had to look in the encyclopedia, as I had no idea what the… Read More

I was given an assignment in a Hebrew class years ago to write an essay about the topic of nostalgia. Feeling slightly rebellious I decided to bend the rules a little and write a poem instead. I don’t have the Hebrew original in my possession anymore but from memory and with a little bit of effort I’ve fleshed out a new revised English version. Feel free to give it a read and think whatever you will. I don’t claim to be a good poet. For me this was simply an opportunity to meditate, to ponder an idea, to imagine, to… Read More

A previous post may have led you to believe that Julie Smith would be parading around on Halloween as the old lady who swallowed a fly, or the whale who swallowed Jonah, but a recent inquiry reveals that she’s decided on going as a proud new mother. In other words, her scheduled delivery date was moved from November 3rd to today. I don’t know what the custom is around here, but I thought everyone would like to know. A Times and Seasons prayer roll, of sorts. Read More

I will handle this topic as gently as I can. In this post I wonder whether Mormons who choose to leave the church are disproportionately likely to lean left politically. As most of you know, I’m a political conservative, so I’m afraid this topic will make some readers defensive. That is not my intention. It would be easier to treat this subject delicately were someone else — someone who’s left of center — to raise it. (Only Nixon could go to China; only Bill Cosby could chastise black parents.) Anyway, let me emphatically say from the outset that I know… Read More