Steveawiggins

LATEST ARTICLES ( 4522 )

• Trial and Error

  

  I’m not a fan of true crime. It seems that daily life has enough drama for me without reading about the truly dark aspects of human behavior. Read more

  Posted on 13 November 2014 POLITICS, RELIGION, SOCIETY

• Biblically Literate Ichabod Crane

  

  I’m trying to pace my viewing of Sleepy Hollow, but autumn is never long enough for me. In many ways the FOX series exemplifies the current love-hate... Read more

  Posted on 12 November 2014 POLITICS, RELIGION, SOCIETY

• Parable of Jericho

  

  It had been there my entire life. I hadn’t really noticed it, but it was a powerful symbol—not in the way that it was intended to be. Read more

  Posted on 11 November 2014 POLITICS, RELIGION, SOCIETY

• Darwin Down the Road

  

  The accidents of birth are the stuff of evolution. When I first heard of Matthew Chapman, direct descendent of Charles Darwin, over a decade ago, I was... Read more

  Posted on 10 November 2014 POLITICS, RELIGION, SOCIETY

• Earthbound

  

  Major news outlets have been raving over Interstellar, the new Christopher Nolan film. I’ve not seen it yet, and it hasn’t had the same kind of hype that Noah... Read more

  Posted on 09 November 2014 POLITICS, RELIGION, SOCIETY

• Literary Hunter-Gatherers

  

  Perhaps the clearest place my hunter-gatherer roots show is in my tendency to collect. In principle, in Manhattan, I leave coins on the pavement for those less... Read more

  Posted on 08 November 2014 POLITICS, RELIGION, SOCIETY

• Windmills of My Mind

  

  Stonehenge may be the best known stone circle in the world, but it is by no means the only one. Not too many miles from its more famous cousin lies Avebury, a... Read more

  Posted on 07 November 2014 POLITICS, RELIGION, SOCIETY

• Let It Be

  

  Why do people pray to Mary? The question is a complex one and answers range from a desire to find some feminine compassion in an angry masculine god to the... Read more

  Posted on 06 November 2014 POLITICS, RELIGION, SOCIETY

• Guy Fawkes

  

  “Remember, remember the fifth of November,” so begins the poem that haunts my every autumn with V for Vendetta. As a colonial, I never really peered too deeply... Read more

  Posted on 05 November 2014 POLITICS, RELIGION, SOCIETY

• Horrorshow

  

  Halloween may be over, and more’s the pity. Still, Halloween is simply the entry point to longer nights and opportunities to revisit what scares us in the dark. Read more

  Posted on 04 November 2014 POLITICS, RELIGION, SOCIETY

• Medusa on the Rocks

  

  Shipwrecks possess a compelling resonance that is difficult to explain. I have seldom been on boats, but from my youngest days I’ve been drawn to the coast. Read more

  Posted on 03 November 2014 POLITICS, RELIGION, SOCIETY

• Allhallowtide

  

  is a triduum. No, I’m not writing in tongues. Ecclesiastical language can often be foreign to the secular world, and the fact that it’s All Souls’ Day for some... Read more

  Posted on 02 November 2014 POLITICS, RELIGION, SOCIETY

• Fear and Dissembling

  

  Last year, when The Conjuring was released, it quickly became one of the (if not the) top earning horror films of all time at the box office. Read more

  Posted on 01 November 2014 POLITICS, RELIGION, SOCIETY

• Transformations

  

  Halloween, when you think about it, is an odd holiday. I know many who claim it as their favorite although you get no presents and not even a day off work. Read more

  Posted on 31 October 2014 POLITICS, RELIGION, SOCIETY

• The Wars of the Worlds

  

  Just as it is appropriate for news sources to carry religious stories without ridicule in weekend editions, October is the month when strange things might be... Read more

  Posted on 30 October 2014 POLITICS, RELIGION, SOCIETY

• Non-Fiction Steampunk

  

  The histories of Tom Standage approach familiar things from unfamiliar angles. Being interested in Steampunk, and a daily user of the internet who has trouble... Read more

  Posted on 29 October 2014 POLITICS, RELIGION, SOCIETY

• Devil’s Food

  

  One figure among the standard repertoire of Halloween characters has never appeared on my list of favorite monsters. I suppose it may be because as a child I... Read more

  Posted on 28 October 2014 POLITICS, RELIGION, SOCIETY

• How God Became Male

  

  What is gender? Okay, we all know about the mechanics of the thing, but gender is more than just sex. Indeed, it is a psycho-social construct that is difficult... Read more

  Posted on 27 October 2014 POLITICS, RELIGION, SOCIETY

• Keeping Time

  

  Did you remember to set your clock back? Depending on where you are (and this presumes there are any people reading this at all) it might have been a mistake. Read more

  Posted on 26 October 2014 POLITICS, RELIGION, SOCIETY

• The Fate of Goddesses

  

  The goddesses Asherah and Astarte are sometimes confused, even by experts. Astarte, also known as Ashtart, Ashtarte, Athtart, and Astaroth, among other names, i... Read more

  Posted on 25 October 2014 POLITICS, RELIGION, SOCIETY