At colleges across the country, sports teams are getting ready for the spring season. Which brings to mind a story about the little color that could. There once was a Quaker farm kid who grew up to be an engineer, helped develop the telegraph, and became a founding member of…

In the earliest days of Christianity, Apostle Paul wrote a letter to a group of proto-Christians in Anatolia, clarifying many of his views. This document, the Epistle to Galatians, is commonly known as just “Galatians,” and it is the ninth book of the New Testament. It provides many of the…

On January 20, 1775, the most influential English politician of the century arrived at the House of Lords. This was William Pitt the Elder, Earl of Chatham, who had been Prime Minister of England from 1766 to 1768, and before that the guiding power behind two other Prime Ministers who…

When news breaks during the holidays, its understandable that some of the details might get missed by journalists who have to work that shift. But in the case of the obituary of President James Earl Carter, they’ve had almost two years to get his biography prepared. And in my opinion,…

As the Anniversary of the Boston Tea Party approached, tensions were running high throughout New England. The port of Boston had been closed by numerous British ships, including a 50-gun man-of-war floating in the harbor, and another in the Charles River. The only entrance to the town was guarded by…

250 years ago this week, the First Continental Congress concluded, with little decided and much hanging in the balance. Delegates from all the colonies except Georgia, including such notables as John Adams, Sam Adams, Patrick Henry, John Jay, and Roger Sherman, and led by President Peyton Randolph of Virginia and…

This past week I attended a writer’s event and was supported by my mother, my sister, three aunts, and three female cousins. Meanwhile, we are going through a surreal political season in which one candidate is a serial womanizer and convicted sexual abuser who has taken away a woman’s right…

I learned a new word today. But first, about my big brother Harper, for those of you who don’t already know. For the past couple of decades, he has been the leader of a very cool thing on the campus of the University of Oregon called the Urban Farm. As…