Steveawiggins

LATEST ARTICLES ( 4522 )

• White Carrots

  

  Acronyms are useful in a complex world, although they are frequently opaque to outsiders. Taking a new job you’re found constantly swimming in an alphabet soup... Read more

  Posted on 01 February 2015 POLITICS, RELIGION, SOCIETY

• What If?

  

  A game that parenting books used to recommend was called “What if?”. It was an imagination game played by parents with their children to teach them about... Read more

  Posted on 31 January 2015 POLITICS, RELIGION, SOCIETY

• Holy Trilogy

  

  Alumni magazines, thinly disguised appeals for money that they are, seldom merit much time. This doesn’t stop me, in any case, from sending notices of my new... Read more

  Posted on 30 January 2015 POLITICS, RELIGION, SOCIETY

• Get Me Jesus on the Line

  

  The letter is the greatest casualty of the internet. I sometimes obsess about how little time people put into their emails, often coming across as gruff or... Read more

  Posted on 29 January 2015 POLITICS, RELIGION, SOCIETY

• Star Struck

  

  One of the coveted symbols of approval in my childhood was the star at the top of a paper. I watched in amazement (perhaps because they were so rare) when a... Read more

  Posted on 28 January 2015 POLITICS, RELIGION, SOCIETY

• Skynet

  

  Of cultural innovations, none rivals the internet. Engulfing the world in its wide web, the constant availability of signal has changed everything. In the past... Read more

  Posted on 27 January 2015 POLITICS, RELIGION, SOCIETY

• Seeing I

  

  One of my few Twitter followers (stawiggins) suggested that I watch Dr. Ken Hayworth on YouTube. Specifically, Part 3: If we can build a brain, what is the... Read more

  Posted on 26 January 2015 POLITICS, RELIGION, SOCIETY

• Ptsd

  

  In a recent post on BBC Health, James Gallagher discusses ancient Assyria. What can ancient Assyria have to say about modern health, beyond the occasional... Read more

  Posted on 25 January 2015 POLITICS, RELIGION, SOCIETY

• Poet Tree

  

  Perspective often determines reality. Among those animals that can potentially live what seems to us a long time, humans measure centuries and millennia, lookin... Read more

  Posted on 24 January 2015 POLITICS, RELIGION, SOCIETY

• Ships Ahoy

  

  I’m always on the lookout for a good metaphor. Some time ago a humorous list of improbable book titles was circulating the internet. One of those books was How... Read more

  Posted on 23 January 2015 POLITICS, RELIGION, SOCIETY

• Soulful Phantoms

  

  Phantasmagoria is a most appropriate title for the book by Marina Warner that bears that single-word name. The back cover bears none of those helpful tags that... Read more

  Posted on 22 January 2015 POLITICS, RELIGION, SOCIETY

• Weather to Panic

  

  Over the long weekend, our furnace kicked off two days in a row. This January has been chillier than some, and we’ve been sitting around with blankets on our... Read more

  Posted on 21 January 2015 POLITICS, RELIGION, SOCIETY

• Creating Diversity

  

  Informed opinion is a chimera. I write that as someone who has time to read only the news stories my wife or my friends pass on to me. Once in a while one of... Read more

  Posted on 20 January 2015 POLITICS, RELIGION, SOCIETY

• Just Justice

  

  It was not intentionally because it was Martin Luther King Junior’s alma mater that I chose to attend Boston University School of Theology. Read more

  Posted on 19 January 2015 POLITICS, RELIGION, SOCIETY

• Divergency

  

  Self-denial, no matter what its motivation, is a religious ideal. In its more extreme forms it becomes martyrdom, but most religions agree on the value of takin... Read more

  Posted on 18 January 2015 POLITICS, RELIGION, SOCIETY

• Maine Event

  

  We have no control over where we’re born. Place, however, has a sacred significance. Many people have a sense of where they belong. Life may be a prolonged... Read more

  Posted on 17 January 2015 POLITICS, RELIGION, SOCIETY

• The Last Word

  

  The end of the world, it seems, never goes out of fashion. My wife shared a story on the BBC about CNN (such self-referential media hype may be a sign that... Read more

  Posted on 16 January 2015 POLITICS, RELIGION, SOCIETY

• Holy Food

  

  One of the undisputed benefits of working for a publisher of a wide variety of academic books is the opportunity to learn about different topics that might... Read more

  Posted on 15 January 2015 POLITICS, RELIGION, SOCIETY

• Bodily Futures

  

  Just about everyone I know has their own method of curing the hiccups (or, in their more evocative spelling, hiccoughs). Most of these involve holding one’s... Read more

  Posted on 14 January 2015 POLITICS, RELIGION, SOCIETY

• News Work

  

  I’m confused. (Well, no surprises there.) I just read the cover story in last week’s Newsweek, “The Bible: So Misunderstood it’s a Sin,” by Kurt Eichenwald.... Read more

  Posted on 13 January 2015 POLITICS, RELIGION, SOCIETY