Steveawiggins

LATEST ARTICLES ( 4650 )

• Camping Season

  

  Summer is the time for camp. I’m not into extreme sports, like sleeping outdoors in the snow, so in my mind, summer is the time for camp. Read more

  Posted on 12 July 2016 POLITICS

• Nazi Religion

  

  As a lifelong pacifist, I’ve never been a fan of war books. Indeed, war seems to be to an utterly useless waste of life and a source of herculean suffering. Read more

  Posted on 11 July 2016 POLITICS, RELIGION, SOCIETY

• Words for Play

  

  Maybe you’ve seen it too.  Corporate-style psychobabble.  Memos land on your desk, whether real or virtual, jostling with neologisms, indicating the trendy new... Read more

  Posted on 10 July 2016 POLITICS, RELIGION, SOCIETY

• Joban Vampires

  

  The first vampire novel I ever read, I remember correctly, was one of the Dark Shadows series written by Marilyn Ross. I don’t recall which one, since I had to... Read more

  Posted on 09 July 2016 POLITICS, RELIGION, SOCIETY

• Holy Girdles

  

  Religions, it seems, come in belts. Or at least elements of religions do. Although we may not all agree on what constitutes the “Bible Belt” we all have a prett... Read more

  Posted on 08 July 2016 POLITICS, RELIGION, SOCIETY

• Buying Intangibles

  

  Perhaps it seems that I’m writing quite a bit about music these days. Being a theoretical and practical failure in the practice of music, it may seem... Read more

  Posted on 07 July 2016 POLITICS, RELIGION, SOCIETY

• Two Unrelated Stories

  

  Harvard University’s been in the news. Well, Harvard makes the news, so that not news. The first story that has appeared is that Harvard, like me, is giving it... Read more

  Posted on 06 July 2016 POLITICS, RELIGION, SOCIETY

• Simon Says

  

  Music preserves your youth. When my wife was studying music therapy, one of the pieces of information she received is that those whose brains have begun to... Read more

  Posted on 05 July 2016 POLITICS, RELIGION, SOCIETY

• Things Remembered

  

  Freedom. Independence Day is our celebration of liberty. Yesterday I happened to find myself at Bethel Woods, the out-of-the-way location in New York where... Read more

  Posted on 04 July 2016 POLITICS, RELIGION, SOCIETY

• Kidnapped by Religion

  

  The title is, unfortunately, not mine. My wife sent me a story on NPR entitled “Humility Is Embedded In Doing Science, But What About Spirituality?” by Barbara... Read more

  Posted on 03 July 2016 POLITICS, RELIGION, SOCIETY

• Summer of Frankenstein

  

  Two centuries can make an enormous difference. Just two-hundred years ago Napoleon’s defeat at Waterloo was merely one year in the past. North America and... Read more

  Posted on 02 July 2016 POLITICS, RELIGION, SOCIETY

• Popular Eternity

  

  Popular culture, it seems to me, mediates reality. The media of various descriptions teach us what to think, and even if there is a religiously “orthodox” answe... Read more

  Posted on 01 July 2016 POLITICS, RELIGION, SOCIETY

• Dinosaurs, Old and New

  

  Tyrannosaurus rex, aside from being a photogenic movie star, was one of the top predators of its day. Ironically, in the Jurassic Park original trilogy (which... Read more

  Posted on 30 June 2016 POLITICS, RELIGION, SOCIETY

• True Fiction

  

  In this world of rational materialism, people still turn to fiction. Some prefer it in the form of movies, television, or internet, but those of us “old... Read more

  Posted on 29 June 2016 POLITICS, RELIGION, SOCIETY

• Half-Way Holy

  

  I’ve been reading about Ruth lately. Ruth doesn’t have a last name. She’s a character in the Bible. The book named after her is one of the shortest in the... Read more

  Posted on 28 June 2016 POLITICS, RELIGION, SOCIETY

• Biological Imperative

  

  Nothing used to make you feel smarter than being in a British bookstore. With that curious blend of proper, insane, and bawdy, books are displayed that you migh... Read more

  Posted on 27 June 2016 POLITICS, RELIGION, SOCIETY

• Insane Deities

  

  It was 1987. I was in Israel for a good part of the summer excavating at Tel Dor. Between degrees and trying what to do with my life, like many people, I... Read more

  Posted on 26 June 2016 POLITICS, RELIGION, SOCIETY

• Cryptology 46

  

  From Wikimedia CommonsFour centuries ago this year William Shakespeare died. In the literary world there have been lots of commemorations going on, and all the... Read more

  Posted on 25 June 2016 POLITICS, RELIGION, SOCIETY

• Philosophies of Reading

  

  I like my Starter. For those of you unaccustomed to New Jersey Transit buses and their ways, a Starter is a person who makes sure the buses scheduled to arrive... Read more

  Posted on 24 June 2016 POLITICS, RELIGION, SOCIETY

• Prophetic Shaman

  

  Don’t complain. So I’m told. Work with the system (i.e., the privileged), do your part, and most of all, don’t complain. What would Jeremiah do? Or any of the... Read more

  Posted on 23 June 2016 POLITICS, RELIGION, SOCIETY