As we come to the end of Black History Month, I have to repeat the tale of an American who was there at our very beginning. Folks have argued over exactly who he was. The only two surviving documents that refer to him describe him as “mulatto,” “Indian,” “a tall…

It’s a long weekend; it’s about time. King Henry VIII was a destroyer. His Wife #1, Catherine of Aragon, gave him only a daughter, named Mary, so he divorced her. This brought on the wrath of the Pope, got Henry excommunicated, created the Church of England, and broke Christendom in…

OK, let’s start the story with the part that we’re pretty sure about. We know that Valentine’s Day is a Roman co-opting of a ritual from a previous civilization (kinda like another we reported just last week; wow, it’s like Groundhog Day all over again!) It was the Greeks who…

This story starts in Jerusalem, way back during the Roman Empire.      There was a righteous elder named Simeon. He had been visited by the Holy Ghost, who assured him that he would not die until he had witnessed the arrival of the Messiah. One day while he was in…