7.21.17 Good Boy

This one is about man’s best friend. Who, as it turns out, is also man’s oldest friend. No one knows for sure when civilization first started. Scientists guess that the domestication of plants and animals first happened in the fertile crescent of the Middle East. We can say with some…
2017

10.30.15 The Jack Facts

Who’s Jack? And what’s up with the lantern? There’s a lot of ancient tradition involving scary lights at harvest time. Pre-Christian Europeans celebrated Samhaim, the autumn festival of the Dead, with bonfires and torches and other late-night illuminations. Samhaim was later displaced by All Saint’s Day, but the fascination with…
2015

6.13.14 Inter caetera

The World Cup is upon us, and so of course we need a quick refresher course in Global Domination! But we’re not talking about team rankings, Messi versus Neymar, or the sinister mind of Sepp Blatter. We’re talking about…the awesome power…of the Inter caetera. Let’s return to the early 1400’s,…
2014