How Long Does it Take?

I think that Americans in general want everything done in a hurry. Maybe that’s why so many of us have cell phones, microwaves, air conditioning, central heating, and fuel-injected engines. We want it done NOW. So, if things don’t always turn out the way we want or...

Year Zero

In April of 1975 the communist Cambodian army (known as the Khmer Rouge) finally overwhelmed and conquered the pro-Western Cambodian army (ostensibly backed by the United States). The communists entered the capital city and immediately began implementing their concept...

How to Understand the Past (Part 2)

Art is a window to the soul. For thousands and thousands of years, human beings have looked at their world and tried to capture its beauty or terror or confusion or humor in some form of art. From the wall paintings of buffalo by the cave men who lived on the Iberian...

How to Understand the Past (Part 1)

The Spanish philosopher George Santayana is often quoted as “those who fail to learn from the past, repeat it.” It is the lesson of history. If history is not being taught to each generation (our children), then eventually we will raise a generation that “knew not...

The Blessings of Medieval Education

The blessings of Medieval education? Are you crazy??? In the medieval world all people studied was how to turn iron into gold, discussed how many angels danced on the head of a pin, and believed that the world was flat, right? Wrong. Those are contemporary myths;...