Spiritual Sunday Jackie Paskow, a former colleague from the Foreign Language Department, recently mentioned to me a Flannery O’Connor story that had made an impact on her. We normally visit the Paskows on Sunday evenings—Alan is my friend who has cancer—but as we are out of town for the week, I thought I’d send her, […]
Monthly Archives: March 2011
Let He Who Is without Sin Judge Others
Posted in Uncategorized Tagged Christianity, Flannery O'Connor, Religion, Revelation Comments closed
Novelists, Poker Players Must Be Relentless
Sports Saturday I’m written out this week so do yourself a favor and hie thee to some of the best writing about poker that I know. You don’t have to play the game to enjoy the writing of my novelist friend Rachel Kranz, who I’ve mentioned numerous times Her website is called Adventures in Poker, […]
Dance with the Enemy, Then Go Wash
Film Friday The Western, Hollywood’s quintessential genre, can tell us a lot about race relations. I was reminded of this on Wednesday when I taught John Ford’s The Searchers in my American Film class. Rewatching the movie got me thinking about the Congressional hearings on “Muslim American Radicalization,” which began yesterday. I will have more […]
Posted in Uncategorized Tagged Film, Islam, John Ford, John Wayne, racism, Searchers, Westerns Comments closed
Brother Fire Unleashed in Libya
As I watch Muammar Qaddafi turn his air force against his own people, I am trying to imagine conditions on the ground. I asked my father for literature describing the experience, he having once undergone a bombing himself. It occurred in 1944, a couple of weeks after the D Day invasion of Normandy, when the […]
The Powerful Urge for Freedom
I am in awe of the protesters in Tunisia and Bahrain and Egypt and Libya and Iran and Yemen and the Sudan and elsewhere in the Middle East. Their yearning for freedom is so great that, day after day, they put their lives on the line. I pray particularly for those in Libya and […]
Posted in Uncategorized Tagged "Jami's the Camel Driver's Song", Middle East, politics, Revolutions, Rumi Comments closed
Judge Doty in the Role of Deus ex Machina
Sports Saturday Negotiations between the National Football League owners and the Players Association were at an impasse. The owners locking out the players seemed all but inevitable, along with suspension of the 2011 season. Then the goddess Athena stepped in. Taking the form of U.S. District Judge David Doty, she ordered the two sides to […]
Posted in Uncategorized Tagged Beowulf, blood feuds, Football, Homer, labor negotiation, Odyssey, Sports Comments closed
