Thursday, May 1, 2008

BiV's Blog of the Month




And now, the moment you've all been waiting for! The winner of my Blog of the Month for April is:










Times and Seasons is probably the blog I visit the most in the Bloggernacle. (And according to Ziff, I comment there the most, too!) But April has been an exceptional month at T&S. Ardis Parshall started the month out with a quirky April Fool's Day post that wasn't a joke -- And Yet Another Joseph Smith Photograph -- a post I thoroughly enjoyed. It was classic Ardis: a discussion of historical problems associated with locating early images, along with a bit of her delicious sarcasm. Part of the fun at Times and Seasons is the vigorous commentary that invariably follows. In the comments on this post, I encountered Raymond Takashi Swenson, who wrote a series of interesting guest posts this month. I was especially intrigued by his Sorting Out the Virtuous and Praiseworthy using the Japanese culture as an example of the issues that arise when determining which aspects of a culture are compatible with the gospel.

Noteworthy this month were the open Conference threads, always a big draw; feminist discussions, (thanks, Kaimi); great Gospel topics; and even a bit of apologetics (see Jonathan Green's Prophets and Textual Criticism, special appearance by Blake Ostler) I always read T&S's active, fun and informative sidebar.

But there were two things that really put T&S over the top this month. The first was Ardis' continuing posts on obscure Mormon historical figures. I love reading about her investigations to find these people that surface once or twice in the historical record, then disappear. She has a knack of bringing these stories alive for us. In April, she wrote about
James Kalapsza and
James Tillman and the disappearance of Alma P. Richards

Last of all, a must-read for all Bloggernacle participants, are Patricia Karamesines' posts centered around her daughter's 16th birthday. They are tender, wrenching, and thought-provoking. If you haven't read these posts yet, do yourself a favor and follow the links.
Bittersweet Sixteen: Part One
Bittersweet Sixteen: Part Two
Bittersweet Sixteen: Part Three

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

I want a recount...

Actually I agree BiV Ardis easily kicked butt on most. Although Guy Murray's FLDS coverage was pretty good too.

Anonymous said...

Well, hey, BiV, thanks! from me personally, and on behalf of T&S. Posts come and go so fast, no matter how much effort goes into writing some of them, and it's nice to know that they're remembered even a few weeks later.

It's gestures like yours that help to build the community of the bloggernacle, too. Thanks.

Bored in Vernal said...

Sure love T&S, Ardis.

Jon, it's harder to be the writer of a small blog, but you seem to be doing a great job over at Banner, Sword, and Shield. And Guy Murray at Messenger and Advocate was also fabulous this month.

Anonymous said...

BiV: Thanks for the compliment. I'm glad that you enjoy T&S, and I personally attribute the strong showing in April to the fact that I did very little posting ;->....

Bored in Vernal said...

well, but you and Wilfried sure started May out with a bang!

Unknown said...

Thanks for the shout out, BiV.

Anonymous said...

Gee, thanks BiV! For the compliment on those posts and for sticking with me all the way through. Couldn't have been easy!

Kaimi said...

Thanks for the compliment, BiV. And I'm glad that you liked my posts about feminism. Of course, those posts only went up after posts about men were finished. :P