We are pleased to announce that Seth Rogers has agreed to join BT as a permablogger.  Seth is an attorney practicing in Colorado, where he lives with his wife and two young daughters.  He served a mission in Japan and enjoys (among other hobbies) fencing.  A longer bio is posted at Nine Moons.  For his first post, he agreed to answer a few questions about his interests and what got him started with weblogs.  Welcome aboard, Seth!

BT: What got you started blogging?

Seth: I heard a story on NPR news the day Supreme Court Justice Rehnquist returned to court hearings after a period of illness. The news story described how Justice Rehnquist seemed in high spirits and even made a lighthearted joke about Mormons during oral arguments. I was curious as to what the joke was so I tried Googling it a few different ways. In the process, I stumbled across Times and Seasons and apparently the topics piqued my interest. This was around the spring or summer of 2004. From there, I discovered By Common Consent, Dave’s Mormon Inquiry, and FeministMormonHousewives. It took a while longer to discover the Bloggernacle Times and Millennial Star. The other blogs followed in turn.

I suppose I’m a bit weird, but I actually enjoy writing. Unfortunately, ever since I gained my undergraduate degree, I’ve rarely had the opportunity to write in a style I really enjoy. Getting published on Wyoming Law Review came close but, to be honest, I’ve never been particularly passionate about the law.  The bloggernacle presented me with the opportunity to start writing about my real interest: Mormon belief and its interface with our world.

BT: How did you hook up with the crew at Nine Moons?

Seth: Nothing all that exciting. Rusty emailed me an invite, I thought it over and accepted.

I did a guest post over on FMH once a while back, but that was about it. I’ll admit, I was a bit worried about being tied down to one spot on the bloggernacle (I like to maintain some scope for spontaneity). I also had a nagging worry about whether I really have anything useful to say when I’m not simply leeching off the ideas of others. But so far it’s been fun. We’ll see where it goes.
 
BT: What sort of LDS themes interest you enough to blog about regularly?

Seth: It’s really hard to say. I’m not particularly disciplined in my approach to writing or learning. Honestly, I’ve liked just about everything at some point or another. My posts at Nine Moons so far have been all over the place. I’m a complete lost cause at a bookstore or library. I hardly know where to turn first.

Still, a few topics do seem to bring me out of the woodwork with a fair amount of regularity:

- The United States as Babylon
- Creeping societal idolatry
- Contemporary Mormon attempts to refashion our religion in the image of Babylon
- “Market failures” and how capitalism is ruining us
- America’s empire and its stewardship of humanity
- Self-centered behavior and why “what you wear” does matter
- How technology is changing everything
- Slimy moral relativism and why I prefer a good clean fight to “religious tolerance”
- “Holy envy” and what the other faiths are doing right that we could emulate
- The fall of modern manhood and the loss of masculinity

I’m also interested in American and European history generally. Despite their apparent popularity with others, the bloggernacle standbys of “same-sex marriage,” “blacks and the Priesthood,” “I hate BYU,” and “abortion” are pretty hit-or-miss with me. I might comment or I might not. But I have a hard time getting too worked up about them.

BT: Read any good books lately?

Seth: I think that everyone needs to read Watership Down at least once. I’ve read it several times. More recently, I’ve been reading it to my wife for the second time (it’s a shame that our society has pretty-much lost the oral component of reading).

Wayne Muller’s Sabbath: Restoring the Sacred Rhythm of Rest is a remarkable book and easy to read. I need to do a blog post on this book sometime.

Rick Atkinson’s Army at Dawn is a gripping and comprehensive treatment of World War II America’s largely ignored North Africa campaign. It’s right up there with A Bridge Too Far. I can’t wait for the second book in the supposed trilogy. I’m cheating here, because I actually read this one about 6 months ago.

Believe it or not, I’d never read John Krakauer’s Into Thin Air until last month. It’s a good piece of non-demanding reading on one of my other armchair fascinations: high altitude mountaineering.

I’m picking up Annie Dillard’s Pulitzer Prize winning Pilgrim at Tinker Creek for the second time this fall. It really is an astonishing book in several respects.

After seeing the movie of the same name, I read Howl’s Moving Castle. Very amusing book if you’re in the mood for some light reading.

BT: What is your most memorable visit to an LDS historical site?

Seth: Back when I was in middle school, my family – six kids and mom and dad – piled into our spartan Ford van and set out from Richfield, Utah on an epic loop across Colorado, Kansas, Missouri, Illinois, South Dakota, Wyoming, and home again. We visited the site of the Far West Temple (I didn’t understand why we hadn’t built a temple there yet … I didn’t see any mobbers about …) and Adam Ondi Ahman. The latter really connected with me spiritually and I could almost imagine the valley filled with bearers of the Holy Priesthood awaiting the return of our forebears.

We also visited Liberty Jail, where my younger autistic brother Ben was an absolute mess – talking non-stop, climbing on things, disrupting, yelling. The tour guide paused. “Most people find this a rather spiritual experience,” he remarked mildly.

Must be nice to be “most people.”

I also saved my other kid brother from a nasty looking wasp by smashing it dead on his leg. He was black and blue for days!  But quite grateful just the same.

BT: What’s your theory about why so many lawyers become bloggers?

Seth: I wouldn’t put much stock in my opinion on this. My own work situation is probably atypical for most lawyers.

A few thoughts though:

a. Years of sifting through boring, 50-page court opinions has made us really good at skimming through a lot of material for the “main points.” I don’t think this applies to law professors. They actually think that the cases are worth reading carefully. I doubt most of their students or real-life practitioners feel the same way. So reading through a thread doesn’t take quite as much time as you’d think.

b. After three years of feverishly copying a droning law professor’s lectures verbatim, you get to be a really fast typist. I’m not ripping on profs here, by the way, it’s just that they tend to be coming from a different planet at times.

c. That title of “Doctorate” gives one a reckless feeling of competence to comment on almost any subject, justified or not. I’m not afraid of your silly Masters in Nuclear Physics! I’m a lawyer!

d. Both the law and the blogs tend to attract folk with obsessive compulsive disorder.

BT: So tell us about fencing.  I know it’s a popular pastime on the holodeck, but I haven’t encountered any real-life fencers before.

Seth: It’s the oldest and most continuous Olympic sport in the Summer Olympics. It’s loosely based on the idea of the duels with smallswords that occurred throughout the 18th and 19th centuries among both the respectable and those of dubious moral character. The only difference is that if you acted like a modern sport fencer in an actual duel, you’d probably get yourself killed. The sport is much more aggressive and heedless of the opponent’s sword than real dueling (which makes sense considering that sport weapons don’t actually skewer very well). Matches are played in 15-point bouts (like tennis).

The sport is actually divided into three disciplines: Foil, Epee, and Sabre.

Foil is derived from a training weapon used to show would-be duelers how to initiate attacks without impaling yourself. Therefore, foil has a lot of complex notions of right-of-way and proper target area. The only hits that count are those made to the torso. It’s probably the best weapon to start with.

Epee allows hits anywhere on the body and doesn’t bother with right-of-way. First person to score a hit anywhere wins the point. This actually attempts to re-create a historical reality of dueling. Sometime in the 18th century, duels gradually grew less lethal. You’d have the odd exception of course, like Burr vs. Hamilton, but typically, merely facing the possibility of death was enough to vindicate the honor of the participants. Challenges would be offered, seconds chosen. The combatants would meet — supposedly fully willing to die for their honor — and begin dueling. After the first blood of the match was drawn, no matter how trivial, the seconds would rush in, separate the duelists, and then usually try to talk some sense into the protagonists. In most cases, the small amount of blood was good enough for both. Honor had been satisfied and the combatants would often retire to a pub and buy each other drinks.

Isn’t that just sooo much better than our current litigation system?

Sabre loosely recreates the idea of fighting with an edged weapon. Most Hollywood portrayals of fencing are actually sport sabre affairs. Think of the infamous Princess Bride duel with a lot more charging, leaping, and general legwork. Target area includes everything from the waist up (the idea being that sabre fighting was typically done from horseback). Unlike epee and foil, where only point-hits count, you can make contact with any part of the sabre blade and score.

I took up the sport at Utah Valley State College on a whim and got hooked. I spent 5 years training competitively at Utah Valley Sport Fencing (a club in Orem). Since then, I’ve been off-and-on for the past five years. Haven’t had much opportunity lately, but I’m plotting a comeback!