Steveawiggins

Description


6847 shares

MY BLOGS

  • Sects and Violence in the Ancient World http://sawiggins.wordpress.com/

    A blog that tries to find intelligent things to say about religion and related subjects.

LATEST ARTICLES ( 4674 )

  • Learning Too Late

    Learning Late

    Threads of this, crumbs of that.  My life has been a grasping at small bits.  I know the things I like, but which circumstances keep me from.  Nobody is paid... Read more

    Posted on 26 October 2023 POLITICS, RELIGION, SOCIETY
  • Ginger Wolves

    Ginger Wolves

    I’ve known about Ginger Snaps for years but the reason I finally watched it was a rainy fall weekend. The kind of day that suggests imminent winter and you... Read more

    Posted on 25 October 2023 POLITICS, RELIGION, SOCIETY
  • Please Slow Down

    Please Slow Down

    I’m always happy to respond to emails from friends.  Lately, however, my account has been so cluttered that emails fall off the top page as more and more... Read more

    Posted on 24 October 2023 POLITICS, RELIGION, SOCIETY
  • Not Grant

    Grant

    Grant Wood’s painting, “American Gothic,” is undoubtedly his most famous work. The image is so evocative and suggestive that countless interpretations have... Read more

    Posted on 23 October 2023 POLITICS, RELIGION, SOCIETY
  • An EAP

    It may be superstitious, but one of the best ways to assure something else going wrong is to say, “I need something to go right just now.”  This year, since... Read more

    Posted on 22 October 2023 POLITICS, RELIGION, SOCIETY
  • What Message?

    What Message?

    The search for autumnal horror movies is a never-ending one. Can it really be that auteurs just don’t—drenched in the California sun—get that October feeling? Read more

    Posted on 21 October 2023 POLITICS, RELIGION, SOCIETY
  • Don’t Stare

    Don’t Stare

    Having people just outside your window all day is a bit unnerving.  We don’t have central air and I keep my windows open when possible in the summer. Read more

    Posted on 20 October 2023 POLITICS, RELIGION, SOCIETY
  • Something Wicked

    Something Wicked

    There comes a morning each year, pre-dawn, that it happens. I crawl out of bed and things feel slightly chilly. The furnace hasn’t been turned on yet, and ever... Read more

    Posted on 19 October 2023 POLITICS, RELIGION, SOCIETY
  • Frightening Legacy

    Frightening Legacy

    Like The Wicker Man, The Exorcist also turns fifty this December. I was caught up in this half-century mania and so I got ahold of Nat Segaloff’s The Exorcist... Read more

    Posted on 18 October 2023 POLITICS, RELIGION, SOCIETY
  • Small Bits

    Small Bits

    A doctorate in the humanities involves learning as much as possible about a limited subject and being able to demonstrate that you know it intimately. Read more

    Posted on 17 October 2023 POLITICS, RELIGION, SOCIETY
  • An October Movie

    October Movie

    October means different things to different people. I know what it feels like to me and I suspect, and hope, that there are others who experience it like I do. Read more

    Posted on 16 October 2023 POLITICS, RELIGION, SOCIETY
  • Final Thoughts

    Final Thoughts

    You feel kind of special running stop signs and red lights.  I’ve never driven in a funeral cortege before but this one is somehow taking place on an... Read more

    Posted on 15 October 2023 POLITICS, RELIGION, SOCIETY
  • Hotelling

    Hotelling

    Perhaps I’m just sleep-deprived, but staying in a hotel is a collective experience.  It’s a place where communal consciousness should run high.  You’re stacked... Read more

    Posted on 14 October 2023 POLITICS, RELIGION, SOCIETY
  • Horror Therapy

    Horror Therapy

    It’s Friday the 13th. Like Barbra and Johnny I’m driving to rural western Pennsylvania to visit a cemetery. It must be October. Read more

    Posted on 13 October 2023 POLITICS, RELIGION, SOCIETY
  • Personal Psalms

    Personal Psalms

    I haven’t heard it yet, but a New York Times article encourages me to. Paul Simon has joined the ranks of those aging music stars to record albums presaging... Read more

    Posted on 12 October 2023 POLITICS, RELIGION, SOCIETY
  • Mom

    I just became an orphan.  I tend not to write about other people without their permission, but I have a few words to say about Doris Ruth Miller.  First of... Read more

    Posted on 11 October 2023 POLITICS, RELIGION, SOCIETY
  • Loco Locusts

    Loco Locusts

    It really used to bother me.  Other kids in kindergarten or first grade called them “crabs.”  The picture, however, clearly showed a lobster.  Quiet and... Read more

    Posted on 10 October 2023 POLITICS, RELIGION, SOCIETY
  • Creeping Again

    Creeping Again

    The morality of Creepshow 2 is pretty straightforward. Of course, this is early Stephen King. Sometimes it’s good to keep things simple. Horror anthologies... Read more

    Posted on 09 October 2023 POLITICS, RELIGION, SOCIETY
  • Calculating Christians

    Calculating Christians

    I know some calculating Christians.  I use “Christian” as religion scholars do—it is the way people identify themselves, not necessarily what they are. Read more

    Posted on 08 October 2023 POLITICS, RELIGION, SOCIETY
  • Simple Arithmetic?

    Simple Arithmetic?

    Arithmetic progressions.  They can boggle the mind.  I think I’ve noted before—I’ve been doing this so long that it’s difficult to be sure—that the exponential... Read more

    Posted on 07 October 2023 POLITICS, RELIGION, SOCIETY