Steveawiggins

LATEST ARTICLES ( 4573 )

• Any Means Necessary

  

  As one of his first acts as governor of New Jersey, Chris Christie cut the Access to the Region’s Core tunnel project. This was before he closed the state-run... Read more

  Posted on 10 July 2017 POLITICS, RELIGION, SOCIETY

• Literary License

  

  Whenever I orient myself to a new place, I tend to do so by the writers who’ve lived there. As a family we used to take “literary trips” to visit locations... Read more

  Posted on 09 July 2017 POLITICS, RELIGION, SOCIETY

• The Consequences of Being Smart

  

  A few years ago my wife bought me a smart phone. Being lifelong Mac users, the iPhone was the model of choice. I don’t have the intense connectivity issues of... Read more

  Posted on 08 July 2017 POLITICS, RELIGION, SOCIETY

• The Ezra Puzzle

  

  America loves the Bible. Thing is, most Americans have no idea how complex the Bible actually is. Jewish, Protestant, Roman Catholic, and Christian Orthodox... Read more

  Posted on 07 July 2017 POLITICS, RELIGION, SOCIETY

• Epics of Humanity

  

  The Epic of Gilgamesh survived only by being buried. Its survival is perhaps less surprising than its discovery after having been lost for many centuries. Read more

  Posted on 06 July 2017 POLITICS, RELIGION, SOCIETY

• Fundamental Law

  

  Last year I posted a piece on Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints fugitive Lyle Jeffs. The occasion for my venturing into this sect was... Read more

  Posted on 05 July 2017 POLITICS, RELIGION, SOCIETY

• Liberty and Justice

  

  I confess to being a bit vexed. How are we supposed to celebrate Independence Day under the Trump administration? Since January our government has demonstrated... Read more

  Posted on 04 July 2017 POLITICS, RELIGION, SOCIETY

• Heresy Collection

  

  Geology isn’t a great avocation for those of us with an unsettled existence. Having grown up with a fondness for fossils—maybe because they were so... Read more

  Posted on 03 July 2017 POLITICS, RELIGION, SOCIETY

• Classical Education

  

  Andrew Dickson White famously wanted Cornell University, unlike what would become known as the other Ivy League schools, to be non-sectarian. Read more

  Posted on 02 July 2017 POLITICS, RELIGION, SOCIETY

• 1985

  

  My edition of 1984 contains an afterword by Erich Fromm. I’m afraid I’ve been in publishing long enough to be somewhat cynical about “value-added content” that’... Read more

  Posted on 01 July 2017 POLITICS, RELIGION, SOCIETY

• Editing Sheep

  

  Many academics I know dismiss editors as just another species of laity put on earth to serve the guild. There’s perhaps some truth to that. Read more

  Posted on 30 June 2017 POLITICS, RELIGION, SOCIETY

• Sky Blue

  

  How do you capture a true and abiding fascination in words? That’s a thought that comes to me once in a while when I think about the sky. It’s so hard to define... Read more

  Posted on 29 June 2017 POLITICS, RELIGION, SOCIETY

• Serpent Number One

  

  I haven’t read The Essex Serpent by Sarah Perry. Yet. My reading list is frighteningly enormous and constantly growing. I just can’t seem to get on top of it. Read more

  Posted on 28 June 2017 POLITICS, RELIGION, SOCIETY

• Fishers of Cars

  

  The car was drunkenly weaving across lanes in substantial traffic along Interstate 80. Erratic driving that, although not breathalyzer confirmed, suggested... Read more

  Posted on 27 June 2017 POLITICS, RELIGION, SOCIETY

• Media May I?

  

  “Television today plays too great a part in our national life for us to allow it to fall into misuse by unprincipled hucksters. Read more

  Posted on 26 June 2017 POLITICS, RELIGION, SOCIETY

• Wonders and Signs

  

  Raised by a woman who would be perhaps classified as a “single mother” these days—she was technically married except for a very brief time just before my... Read more

  Posted on 25 June 2017 POLITICS, RELIGION, SOCIETY

• Science of the Immaterial

  

  One of the truly frustrating things for the honestly curious is a lack of good resources. Specifically here I’m talking about ghosts. More generally, about the... Read more

  Posted on 24 June 2017 POLITICS, RELIGION, SOCIETY

• No Explanation

  

  How do you explain that? Everything, I mean. The need to understand “life, the universe, and everything” is as old as our species, and perhaps even older than... Read more

  Posted on 23 June 2017 POLITICS, RELIGION, SOCIETY

• Scaping By

  

  Failure is a part of life. We don’t like stories about failure, however, unless the protagonist goes out with a memorable bang. So it is that when we fail we... Read more

  Posted on 22 June 2017 POLITICS, RELIGION, SOCIETY

• Gilded Age

  

  What relevance could the Gilgamesh Epic possible hold for contemporary people? Well, one of my colleagues has said that every book is now about Trump. While I... Read more

  Posted on 21 June 2017 POLITICS, RELIGION, SOCIETY