Steveawiggins

LATEST ARTICLES ( 4576 )

• 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

• Huge Or Not?

  

  The word “refugee,” I recently learned, was originally coined to refer to the Huguenots. As the Reformation began to take hold in Europe, although mostly... Read more

  Posted on 24 October 2014 POLITICS, RELIGION, SOCIETY

• Washed Out Or Burnt Over?

  

  Is America a Christian nation? The answer to that question will no doubt raise ire in some part of the room. People, speaking mostly without data, will assert... Read more

  Posted on 23 October 2014 POLITICS, RELIGION, SOCIETY

• Viking Trail

  

  History is a powerful elixir, capable of transforming sinners to saints with the mere passage of time. Well, calling Vikings saints may be a bit of a stretch,... Read more

  Posted on 22 October 2014 POLITICS, RELIGION, SOCIETY

• Doodle Dandy

  

  Deep in the stacks of the New College library at Edinburgh University, I came upon a book in the open shelves with a date of 1611. Read more

  Posted on 21 October 2014 POLITICS, RELIGION, SOCIETY

• North Tarrytown

  

  Ichabod Crane has undergone many incarnations since Washington Irving conjured him. Not very sympathetically described in the original “Legend of Sleepy Hollow,... Read more

  Posted on 20 October 2014 POLITICS, RELIGION, SOCIETY

• Empire State

  

  Hegemony is a funny word. In studies of antiquity it is commonly found since it denotes the “Leadership or dominance, especially by one country or social group... Read more

  Posted on 19 October 2014 POLITICS, RELIGION, SOCIETY