Monthly Archives: July 2012

Kristallnacht

The Holocaust was officially set in motion following the Wannsee Conference, a meeting of senior officials of the Nazi German regime that was held in the Berlin suburb of Wannsee on January 20, 1942. The conference’s purpose was to inform … Continue reading

Posted in History | Leave a comment

Nursery Rhymes

About a week before her thirteenth birthday, I took my middle daughter to see her pediatrician. She had a sore throat and an ear infection. As we sat in the examination room awaiting the doctor’s arrival, my daughter happened to … Continue reading

Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Pharisees

Assuming the article on NBCNews.com is accurate, LifeWay Stores, which are associated with my denomination (the Southern Baptist Convention), pulled the movie, The Blind Side from their shelves about a month ago because a pastor in Florida by the name … Continue reading

Posted in Bible, Culture, Language, Religion, Theology, Writing | 3 Comments

GPS

In the third Indiana Jones movie, 1989’s Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, Indiana Jones comments that his friend Marcus Brody “gets lost in his own museum.” That bears an uncomfortable resemblance to me, although I have yet to get … Continue reading

Posted in Culture, Space, Technology, Writing | Leave a comment

Jury Duty

My wife and I are strange people. The year when two red and white envelopes arrived in the mail we were excited. One was addressed to my wife, one was addressed to me. Many people dread getting the summons in … Continue reading

Posted in Culture | 1 Comment

E-books

The science fiction author Arthur C. Clarke wrote “For all but a brief moment near the dawn of history, the word ‘ship’ will mean simply – ‘spaceship.’” While we today refer to the books that we read on our computers—whether … Continue reading

Posted in Technology, Writing | Leave a comment

Book Reviews

After spending years writing in obscurity, receiving dozens, if not hundreds of rejections from editors, the day may come when you finally get a publisher to say yes to you. Even after the publisher has said yes, and you’ve signed … Continue reading

Posted in Writing | 1 Comment

Go.

Back in 2004 I had the privilege of being involved in a small way with the launch of SpaceShipOne, the first non-government spaceship. Afterwards, I wrote an article for a small newspaper in Northern California that I still write for. … Continue reading

Posted in History, Space, Technology | Leave a comment

Advice

People don’t really want advice, even if they ask you for it. When someone comes to me to share his or her problem, I’ve learned that the best thing to do while they drone on and on is simply to … Continue reading

Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Allegories

John Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress is perhaps the world’s best known allegory. Christian, the protagonist, travels from the City of Destruction to the Celestial City. Along the way, he passes the Slough of Despond, Giant Despair, Doubting Castle, House of the … Continue reading

Posted in History | Leave a comment