A couple of weeks ago I was perusing that paragon of journalistic integrity, the New York Post (today’s cover: “JACKO: Now Get Out of This One!), and saw a phrase that I’d previously only heard sung (much too slowly) in church. The lead of George Will’s column was “Of capital punishment, Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney says: ‘It makes reason stare.’ Indeed it does.”
First of all, what does this phrase from the early Mormon hymn “O My Father” mean? I guess I understand what its meant to convey, but it certainly is a curious turn of phrase. Has any thought *made* you stare before? If some thought is unreasonable, would personified reason just stare at it? Or perhaps reason is just blankly staring into space, totally flummoxed.
Second, why have we as Mormons been so slow to introduce the unique lexicon of our hymns into a wider sphere? I would love to see the headline “Bush Hies to London;” or “UN Security Council Puts Shoulder to Wheel.”
Lastly, I found it mildly refreshing that a prominent Mormon would so quotably criticize the death penalty. (The context, of course, was that Romney was appointing a commission to look into bringing the death penalty back to Massachusetts.) I don’t think I’ve ever heard such criticism from any other prominent Mormon, nor from much of the rank and file. Perhaps it’s an indication that recent publicity on the topic (Governor Ryan, Scott Turow, the Innocence Project) has had a far-reaching effect in informing people about the real problems with the administration of capital punishment in this country. Then again, maybe Mitt was just thinking, “When in Rome…”
I just set up a page listing all posts by comment number — http://www.timesandseasons.org/allpopular.php — and it is interesting to look at the bottom end (i.e., posts with zero comments). Many are administrative notes. But quite a few are old-timers, the early posts of the blog. Some of these posts had Haloscan comments when we were over at blogspot; those comments appear to be permanently lost.
Anyway, some of these are too good to let languish. Here’s a fun one — Greg wondering what the heck the line means about reason’s stare.