This meme greeted me on Facebook one day and it irked me, as often these Facebook memes do. Usually, it’s because they strip complicated issues down and leave important parts out, serving as sound bites that rarely get analyzed. I can’t not analyze them and argue back. This one is so irksome to me that it’s generating at least 2 blog posts. Here’s the first. Until the most recent election cycle and the takeover of…
Quick, without over-thinking it … Is God male or female? What color is God? What is God like in terms of personality? Have you ever asked anyone who is not your gender, race, or religion what their concept of God is? If you are like most Christians in the United States, you grew up with this concept of God: God is the stern, white, old guy on the right, using his finger to spark the…
Working in the field of public history, one cannot escape hearing about Jane Jacobs eventually. She was a journalist who ended up in the field of architecture, becoming an outspoken advocate for sane development that is more adapted to humans than cars. The book most mentioned within the Jane Jacobs canon is “The Death and Life of Great American Cities.” I have never read it, but a tweet (by Richard Florida, I believe) led me to Jane…
It started subconsciously. With a conversation in which someone mentioned a hot dog, being fed to gar fish and snapping turtles no less. By evening, I was craving a hot dog. But, I didn’t get a hot dog. The craving stayed with me. By the next evening, when Hubby called wondering what we were having for dinner, I asked him to bring home hot dogs, which left his craving for burritos unmet. My favorite hot…
I like books. Must be the understatement of the year. I come by my appreciation for printed books honestly. My mom is a reader, both my grandmas were readers, and one of them had a habit of giving me books as gifts. I have passed my fondness for books onto my children. All of them enjoy visiting bookstores and when we were in Portland visiting my brother years and years ago, our favorite place, the…