Movies, Books, & the Great Conversation

  Movies Those of you who have known me for several decades remember that I was obsessed with movies and filmmaking for the first half of my life. During that time I completed a few short films, most significantly a collection of four linked shorts titled Western...

Conspiracy Theories, Then and Now

History Conspiracy theories are not new. In the 1920s the KKK spread the doctrine that Catholics and the Pope were trying to take over the US government. This is one of the threads that weaves through my trilogy Medicine for the Blues. As proof that such conspiracy...

Violence: KKK & QAnon

A recent article in The Nation magazine states that QAnon is “closer in spirit to terrorist organizations like the KKK, which had ties to political elites but also instigated extrajudicial violence.”...

Racism and English Colonialism

  Racism, nationalism, and religious differences all contributed to prejudices of thought in Elizabethan England—very much like in the present-day USA. In the Beginning Queen Elizabeth’s grant of Letters of Patent to: “…our trusty and well-beloved servant Walter...

Politics in the 1500s and Today

    John Calvin (born in France in 1509 and died in exile in Switzerland in 1564) had some interesting things to say about politics—thoughts with lessons for us today. I’ve been trying to understand the 1600s, and I’ve long believed that you can only...

The “War on Christmas”…Then and Now

    We hear a lot in this season about the “War on Christmas,” but today’s war is nothing like that of the 1600s. England Soon after the Puritan-controlled government executed King Charles I in 1649, they abolished Christmas observances in England. Puritans...

Imposter Syndrome in Art and Life

  There is a well-known story involving an audience member asking a poet who just read one of her poems, “Is that a real poem or did you just make that up?” This fall at the end of the poetry seminar that I took with Andrea Hollander, the subject of feeling like...