Sometimes I can't get things off my mind and they keep me up at night. Here are some things I've wanted to stop thinking about....
So you’re a little kid, and every morning you walk out into this world full of wonder, a world so immense that it is beyond our comprehension and always will be. There is life continually springing from the earth, distant suns shining as stars flanked by their own planets, hard reality and deep mystery, and […]
Not all of Putin’s propagandists know they’re working for him… Right now, Vladimir Putin’s Russia is committing war crimes in Ukraine, a peaceful neighbor whom it attacked without provocation. The Russian military is targeting civilians, including children, with bombs and starvation in its effort to end the Ukrainians’ resistance to annexation by democidal kleptocrats. As […]
What would a Bible-believing nation do about aliens? … Living in the South, you hear a lot of folks say we need to abide by Biblical teaching. You also hear people complaining about non-Americans coming to live and work here. So, I thought to myself, “What does the Bible have to say about that? What […]
The curious history of an even curiouser phrase … It’s raining cats and dogs. A common enough phrase. Makes not the first lick of sense, though. So why do we say it? Well, there are several folk etymologies floating around, including these from the Library of Congress website: Odin, the Norse god of storms, was […]
Why neither liberals nor conservatives will allow reparations … In cities across the US — from Santa Monica, CA, to Athens, GA, to Evanston, IL — Americans who had their lives upended and their opportunities dashed by bigoted policies and actions by their own governments are receiving at least some measure of redress for their losses. But reparations […]
Grits can be terrific or terrible, depending on how you fix ’em … If you’ve seen the Oscar-winning, and hilarious, 1992 comedy My Cousin Vinny, you know the plot ends up turning on the question of how long it takes grits to cook. (That’s not a spoiler, by the way.) If you’re not from the […]
The USA has a gravy for just about every meal … I was having a conversation with some Brits recently and they dropped a real bomb on me. Apparently, in the UK there’s only kind of gravy. As an American and a Southerner, this was just heartbreaking. It’s like finding out there’s a nation where […]
Only the USA could have invented American football… much less enjoy it … You know, there’s a reason why Americans love their brand of “football” so much and why, unlike basketball or baseball, it never caught on outside the USA. I say “a” reason because both of these truths can be traced to a single […]
Give it to me, I want it now! … It absolutely breaks my heart to watch American liberals committing suicide like they’re doing. Especially when you consider it’s the GOP, currently in the process of going full-bore goose-stepping fascist, who’s going to be dancing on their graves. And chucking democracy into the hole right after […]
It’s not about men playing cards … Early in his career, Steve Earle was playing in a club called the Old Quarter in Galveston, Texas, to a “crowd” of about four people, when in walks his hero, Townes Van Zandt, who proceeds to sit directly in front of him. And in between every song, he […]