So Renee Good is dead, Venezuela is under American occupation for who knows how long, United States Coast Guard boats are seizing oil tankers flying Russian flags on international waters , and on Friday, the president of the United States told a meeting of skeptical oil and gas executives whom he’s trying to convince to return to Venezuela that he also covets ownership and occupation of Greenland. About which he mused, “I would like to make a deal, you know, the easy way. But if we don’t do it the easy way, we’re going to do it the hard way.”…
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With some 64% of its population self-identifying as Christian for the 2020 census, the U.S. doesn’t even crack the top 10 Christian populations of the world. But once the camera pans out from the tiny countries comprising that list (Romania, Papua New Guinea, Timor-Leste, et al) the picture changes significantly. Partly owing to its relatively large population (331 million in 2020) and partly to its history of being settled heavily by those fleeing religious persecution, the U.S. leads the world in the gross number of Christians. Its 64% of the U.S. translates to 213 million people, easily outdistancing Brazil at…
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Is there anything more forlorn than a long unused passport, still brimming with hope of adventure for its bearer, though its pages remain unstamped, the whole of it the very epitome of unrealized potential and unfulfilled dreams? So it was for my passport, it having sat idly in a dark closet throughout the nearly seven years since I last renewed it. Mocking, no, make that pleading with me regarding its mint condition, it was languishing in danger of expiration without ever having come under the squinty gaze and worn thumb of an inquiring border agent asking about my intentions in…
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It’s only 23 lines, fitting tidily into no more than one-third of a page in a recent edition of the “The New Yorker” magazine, and it sports a one-word title: “God.” In it, the poet Campbell McGrath almost playfully takes it upon himself to explore….well, it’s hard to lasso it exactly, partly because the three letters in that word remain so elusive, so much the giant projection screen upon which so much depends, from which everything is wanted, and about which nothing is truly known. Is it the Creator, the Source, the Foundation, the Big Ultimate Proper Noun of Person,…
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My friend David Moriah, an organizational consultant, outdoor educator, lifelong baseball fan and longtime contributor to this blog’s Comments section below, died last month after a heroic, wise, often joyful, always resolute stand against prostate cancer. It was a journey he chronicled for his wide and devoted circle(s) of friends on the Caring Bridge website under the banner of “Adventures in ChemoLand” throughout the 15 months he battled the disease. (Yes, David was quick with humor…) Ten years ago today, I posted “A Liberal’s July 4 Love Letter to America” in this space, and David was the first to jump…