Some say that ever ‘gainst that season comes
Wherein our Saviour’s birth is celebrated,
The bird of dawning singeth all night long:
And then, they say, no spirit dare stir abroad;
The nights are wholesome; then no planets strike,
No fairy takes, no witch has power to charm,
So hallow’d and gracious is the time. –Hamlet

John C. Wright is in rare form.

I was driving back from a friend’s house a couple of evenings ago.  I’m feeding and watering his ducks (3 Campbell crosses, one miscellaneous), chickens (5 Plymouth rocks), and one goat (hyper-active).  The sun had just set seconds before I got into the car.  On my left, the snow-covered Manzanos took the exact color of the twilight on my right.

The moment was breathtaking.  A voice, or something like it, said in my mind, ‘Time is sin.  Time is error.”  The sense, I think, was that all pure moments bleed into each other, are, in a sense, the same moment.  It was a good thought for Christmastime.

Life, the universe, and everything.

A young man of my acquaintance contemplates what he should be in the Nativity.  “Jo-fes” or a “Jesus shepherd”?

He decided on the Jesus shepherd. Both get to wear red cowboy boots, so that was a wash. But “Jo-fes has hair on his face” while the Jesus shepherd “has a big black dog named Spaceship-ha.” (I am not making these up).

Moral of the story: uh, don’t get stressed out over Christmas tasks and decisions.

His Majesty loves to monologue on the failure of otherwise intelligent people to rationally weight risks. He was delighted to see this expression in this article.

Link

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Our ward had its Christmas program today in Sacrament Meeting.

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Peter Berkowitz of the Hoover Institution wrote an essay about the 50th anniversary edition of James Burnham‘s 1964 book, Suicide of the West: An Essay on the Meaning and Destiny of Liberalism. Berkowitz joins Steve Moore of the Heritage Foundation to talk about it on The John Batchelor Show.

John Batchelor Show podcast archive.

Direct link to mp3. This segment starts at 19:45.

Berkowitz’s article.

Burnham’s book at Amazon.

I guess this is what they call a “bleg.”

I recently was called as YM President, which of course means I’m also the Priests Quorum Advisor. We have two boys who are high school seniors and planning on missions after the school year. They seem fairly well prepared to go with regard to enthusiasm, testimony, and maturity. What they lack is much substantive knowledge about the Gospel. I’m referring specifically to knowledge of the Scriptures and Church History. From my last few weeks of priesthood lessons, just to give two examples, I know that they had no idea who wrote most of the Epistles, and had never heard of the School of the Prophets. I don’t want to unduly elevate rote memorization of facts, but as a spot check for their familiarity with the source material of our religion, it was not encouraging. What this says about our Sunday School and Seminary classes I will leave for another blog post.

So I’ve decided to get them for Christmas a single volume that gives them a basic and broad-based grounding in Gospel knowledge. (more…)

Enjoy these goodies. (more…)

Maybe into underground rocks.

The New York Times reports the appearance of corruption in the  State Department under Hillary Clinton.

Decades from now, when only old men and women can dimly recall when somebody told a friend of mine about a dancing human spaceman that can read my mind when we got the radio on, there may be 9-year-olds that sing together “Joel, the Lump of Coal.”

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What Really Drives Suicide Bombers, Rampage Shooters, and Other Self-Destructive Killers, by Adam Lankford.

John Batchelor interviewed the book author on his radio show:
Radio show episode/podcast web page.

Direct link to mp3.

The book at Amazon.

G.K. Chesterton shares G.’w worries about virtues run amuck.