I have taken a new job in Richland, Washington, in the eastern part of the state next to the Columbia River. Because of the pressures of moving I will not be able to make regular entries on my blog. I hope you circle back occasionally to see when I get started making new posts.

I am a subscriber to First Things, a journal that focuses on the right of religious people to express their views in the public square in the discussion of public policy ( Read more... )

In the October 2008 issue of First Things, a journal of the application of religious principles to public policy, two essays were presented under the title, Is Mormonism Christian? The first is by Bruce Porter, a member of the First Quorum of the Seventy of the LDS Church, one if its top leadership. The second is by Professor Gerald McDermott of ( Read more... )

Apparently Congressman Cohen who represents the Memphis, Tennessee, area, said on the floor of the House that Barack Obama was "a community organizer like Jesus" and that he was being persecuted by "a governor, Pontius Pilate."  What makes such a pronouncement even more insane than it is on its face is the fact that Cohen touts himself as "the ( Read more... )

Like many Americans, I had no idea who Sarah Palin was a week ago.  Now it is clear that she is a real person, a most unusual thing in politics.  She is someone who knows the realities of marriage and children and working for a living, someone who knows wilderness not as an abstraction but as someone who has lived in it all her life.  She is not ( Read more... )

 
The California Supreme Court has ruled that it was illegal discrimination for a physician to refuse to assist a lesbian to have a baby by artificial insemination, despite the doctor’s religious objections.

What this particular case illustrates is the difference between prohibiting discrimination on the basis of race, gender and religion and ( Read more... )

 
We should thank Chuck Colson for his Breakpoint commentary (http://www.breakpoint.org/listingarticle.asp?ID=8315) which again brings to our attention the campaign to break down the moral foundation that centuries of Christianity has created for Western culture.

What struck me up front about the statement that 30% of Medicare spending goes into ( Read more... )

A recent poignant post on timesandseasons.org ( http://www.timesandseasons.org/?p=4686)  considers the place of mourning in the lives of Latter-day Saint, who have been given renewed assurance by modern witnesses of the reality of the Savior and his resurrection.  These are my comments:

At 58, my wife and I have lived long enough to bury two infant ( Read more... )

At the LDS Bloggernacle site Six LDS Writers and a Frog (http://sixldswriters.blogspot.com/2008/07/lds-morality-for-non-lds-characters.html) there is a post on the question, How should LDS writers portray the behavior of characters in their stories? Should they ensure that all the Mormon women are strong, the Mormon priesthood holders good looking ( Read more... )

 
In the West, a 55 mile and hour speed limit really is insane.  At 75 mph, the 600 miles distance from Salt Lake City to Denver on I-80 and I-25 can be covered in about 8.5 hours driving time, a reasonable day's work--and driving IS work.  But at 55 mph, the time from Salt Lake to Denver increases by a full 2.5 hours to 11 hours.  Not only is that ( Read more... )