October Glory · 1 min read

Gobsmacked by the beauty of the October Glory maple in our front yard. ...

Reclaim Armistice Day! · 3 min read

How many know that Veterans Day, as it’s been called the past 50 years, was originally designated Armistice Day, and remained so for nearly a century before the name was changed by an act of Congress? ...

Of all the sadness · 7 min read

Of all the sadness I’ve felt in this election cycle, one of the deepest has been seeing close ties of friends and family unraveled by “political correctness.” Long ago I learned the wisdom in asking myself, “Would I rather be right, or would I rather be in right relationship?” It’s a great question. And it matters immensely. ...

Trending now: our national identity · 5 min read

Within the week we hopefully will know the outcome of what seems to me “the most consequential presidential election of my lifetime.” While that phrase may sound like typical election hyperbole, the growing sense of angst I feel is due to what I see as a national identity crisis. Who are we, really? ...

Early voting · 3 min read

I recently stood in the early voting line for two hours and 45 minutes on Independence Square, along with more than a hundred others. In these fraught times, it was reassuring to find that during the long wait all remained cordial as we chatted and joked to pass the time. ...

Learning to Love the Bomb? · 9 min read

You know what would be really great?... A 60th birthday party and nation-wide viewing of the film classic, [Dr. Strangelove](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0057012/). For those who’ve missed it, the film is a sobering/hilarious satire of a paranoid general who launches an unauthorized preemptive strike on the Soviet Union’s “Doomsday Machine.” ...

State-sanctioned Murder? · 4 min read

State-sanctioned Murder? I have a friend who calls the death penalty “state-sanctioned murder.” That may sound extreme, but it’s something to think about. By use of the death penalty the state is essentially saying “We’re going to murder murderers to discourage murder.” Really? ...

Reference: Christian Nationalism · 28 min read

## What Is It? Phillip Gorski, author of *American Covenant*, defines the Christian nationalism movement as “a loose confederation of people and institutions that share a certain narrative about American history. In rough outline: America was founded as a Christian nation; the Founding Fathers were evangelical Christians; the Nation’s laws and founding documents were indirectly based on “biblical” principles, or even directly inspired by God, Himself. ...

"Christian" nationalism? · 6 min read

As a word person, I’m fascinated (and often frustrated) by the way words get co-opted, coming to mean the opposite of their original intent. Take the current lingo that describes something really good as really “bad.” What’s with that? Good wasn’t good enough? ...

Still... · 11 min read

Some thoughts I shared on Memorial Day at the nuclear weapons plant in Kansas city: Still… On this Memorial Day, here at the entrance of this Edifice of Apocalypse, we choose life, even as we did more than a decade ago when this was a productive bean field, and we stood before the earth movers to halt their un-natural despoilment and destruction. ...