Pope Benedict XVI really stirred the pot yesterday, with his comments about condoms not working to prevent AIDS. I was tipped off by a few of my Facebook friends, who had not very nice things to say about the Pope in the wake of his words. The Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS was apparently [...]
I really had my eyes opened a couple of years ago, when I happened to be in Tuba City, Arizona on Columbus Day. Tuba City is a very small town on the western portion of the Navajo Nation, and close to the Hopi reservation too. The native kids presumably had the day off of school, [...]
Science will never be able to study God. But scientists are getting ever closer to describing what happens in our brains when we think about God. The idea to peek inside the brains of religious folks is not new, and it started the way many other brain studies did: by looking at brain damage. Starting [...]
In most election years, my Mom and I prefer the same candidate. There have been notable exceptions. One year, my Mom hemmed and hawed when I asked her to explain why she wasn’t rooting for “my guy.” Finally, she came out with it: “Can you imagine looking at that ugly mug for four years?” For [...]
Since I’ve been back in the South, I’ve noticed certain regional peculiarities about food. I’d remembered from growing up in North Carolina that pork — specifically barbecue — was big here. There’s something too about fried cuisine: fried pickles, fried mac and cheese, fried brownies and fried Snickers candy bars are all likely to pop up [...]
