Hobby Lobby is a huge, rich corporation “person” that wants to control more than the place you buy your craft supplies and birth control. They seem to have their fingers in lots of different evangelical pies. It is actually pretty confusing to try and follow everything they are into; but it is certain that they want to implement a hardline evangelical agenda on many fronts and these include a mammoth collection of ancient biblical manuscripts, a National Bible Museum, public school textbooks, and a whole lot more. Continue reading
History
152 posts
On December 23, 1974 three girls went to a Fort Worth, Texas mall to do some last minute Christmas shopping. Rachel Arnold Trlica, 17 and her friend Renee Wilson, 14 let their 9 year-old neighbor Julie Ann Moseley tag along as they ran holiday errands. The girls stopped at a local Army Navy store to retrieve some layaway items and then headed to a Sears store in the nearby Seminary South Shopping Center. 39 years later, they still have not returned and no trace of them has ever been found. Continue reading
An oversized white t-shirt worn for bed; lots of AAA maps of California; red Sharpies; neon yellow highlighters. My dad wears holey gray sweats, a casual summertime uniform people in their 30s can still get away with. My mom is anxious, always anxious. The house buzzes with energy. Usual bedtime rituals are not adhered to. I remember light coming in from the windows in our Ridgefield, Connecticut, rental, but facts I know today tell me this couldn’t have been possible. Continue reading
Geoffrey Chaucer doth humbly request that thou celebrate an old, middle, ancient, archaic or dead language on the first day of April. Continue reading
A musical based on “War and Peace”? I’m sure you think I’m crazy, but “Natasha, Pierre, and the Great Comet of 1812” has been doing very well for what seemed like a short, off beat run. Continue reading
There are two countries that are always going to be linked in the Southeast Asia region due to their similarities, and the key choices that turned one into an economic powerhouse. Brunei and Singapore are the two smallest and wealthiest Southeast Asian nations, and have a currency interchange agreement. Sixty years ago, both set out to diversify their economies and become leaders in the region. The result is a real-world model lesson for developing nations. Continue reading
Canada and the United States are in many respects two very similar countries. Founded as white colonial settler societies, both are now developed capitalist democracies, with functioning multi-party (more or less) politics. In some very important ways, though, Canada and the US are very different countries. The United States has developed a national attitude of rugged individualism, premised on distrust of government and the notion that everyone can succeed and climb through society if they work hard enough. Canada is much more communitarian, turning more to society as a whole, with an attitude of trust in, and deference to, government. Why is this? What made our two countries so similar yet so different?
As you have probably already heard Nelson Mandela has passed away at the age of 95. I am not going to try and give you a full biography of his amazing life and career, I will leave that to the proper biographers. Instead, I will just give you a few thoughts from a person who is an ordinary, sometimes activist who is blessed enough to be surrounded by good people who want to make the world a better place. Continue reading
Sweets for my sweet, aspartame for my archenemy. Continue reading
What do we want? Sanitary napkins! Tampons! Diva Cups! When do we want it? Every 28 days-ish. Continue reading