Barbara Harris was a force of nature! (photo here) She crossed to the other side, at age 89, on Friday the 13th of March 2020. This post will be more personal than usual. I had the privilege to know Barbara for 30 years, and here I want to share some memories that one probably cannot […]
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A Bipartisan Legislative Success Story: The Caminada Headland Example
In a special issue of National Wildlife magazine (February-March 2020), the National Wildlife Federation reported on one of the success stories following the April 2010 catastrophe that was the Deepwater Horizon explosion. Along the Louisiana coastline of the Gulf of Mexico is a narrow sandy barrier called the Caminada Headland. The Headland was already losing […]
Staying Sane in an Insane Time Through Collective Action
For progressives, it is probably not a stretch to say that things in the US have become even scarier, more stressful and more unbelievable than they already were in the Age of Trump. The President, since the release of the Mueller Report, his impeachment, and his acquittal, combined with the undying support he has from […]
Inspiring and Courageous Quotes from Our Country’s Latest Impeachment Chapter
Time will tell how bad the fallout will be for several senators who voted to convict President Trump of one or both of the two Articles of Impeachment on February 5, 2020. We can already see, as early as the next day, how cruel Trump, his family members and his cronies could be toward Utah […]
Trump and Project Blitz: Beware False Attempts to Promote Religious Literacy
In previous posts (Religious Literacy Guidelines for College Students and HarvardX: Online Course on Religious Literacy), we have discussed the necessity among Americans (including journalists) to become more literate about religion, including the Bible (upon which, like it or not, Western civilization is largely dependent). President Donald Trump has announced that his “Department of Education […]
The Cult of Livia at Philippi: The State of Religion at a Pauline City in the Early Christian Centuries
As we have seen in other posts, the city of Philippi in northern Greece was significant in the growth of the so-called “Christ cult” in the first century. St. Paul wrote a letter to the Jesus followers at Philippi, which has come down to us in the New (Christian) Testament and is a major reason […]
The House Financial Services Committee: A Report Card for 2019
After Democrats won the House of Representatives in decisive fashion in the 2018 election, committee chairs shifted radically. Rep. Maxine Waters of California became the first woman and first black lawmaker to serve as chair of the important House Financial Services Committee. Waters, at 81 years young, took a strong hold of the Committee in […]
Questioning Christian Orthodoxy in the Christmas Season
It will strike some readers as “heresy” for members of one of the mainstream Christian denominations (in this case, the Episcopal Church) to question several tenets of a major document of the church – especially when the questioning comes during the major season of Christmas. For other readers, though – perhaps those searching in a […]
Giving Thanks for Our Native American Neighbors
In this season of Thanksgiving, and as we head into the holiday season, two recent developments from the little state of Vermont are noteworthy. Earlier this year, the Vermont Legislature passed a law designating the second Monday in October as Indigenous Peoples’ Day, replacing the traditional designation of Columbus Day. Republican Governor Phil Scott signed […]
Religious Literacy Guidelines for College Students – and the Rest of Us
Religion is frequently in the news, whether we are hearing about shootings at the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh, Mother Emmanuel Church in Charleston, SC, or Sutherland Springs, Texas; differences between Sunni and Shiite Muslims in the Middle East; objections to abortion by leaders in the Roman Catholic Church and conservative politicians, including Vice […]