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Spice Wars Study Guide

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  “He who controls the spice controls the universe.”  — Frank Herbert, Dune  (1965) It came to me in a flash last summer .  Why the United States of America had spent the past two decades trying to control Afghanistan.  Why Big Pharma was pushing the vaccines.  It was the spice. The opium of the poppy fields. The opioids of Big Pharma.  Everything was about controlling the spice. And always had been. Once upon a time, there was a Silk Road. You’ve heard of it I’m sure. The caravan road across the middle of the great Eurasian continent, linking the treasures of the Orient with the markets of the West.  Except throughout the Middle Ages, the markets in the West weren’t much to speak of. A few Italian city-states. A few burghers in the north. Back in high school, I did a presentation about the fairs where they sold their spices. I even wore a costume—a hat that I got at the Renaissance Faire north of Houston, the autumn before I started college there...
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Angels, Demons, Heaven, and Hell: On Christian “Mythology” and the Spiritual Life

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My comments for a conversation with Fr. Peter Funk, OSB, Prior of the Monastery of the Holy Cross, sponsored by the  Lumen Christi Institute Abstract : Many traditional Christian beliefs and teachings about spiritual realities have become unpalatable to modern sensibilities. Accounts of angelic visitations, demonic possessions, the stain of original sin, and the threat of eternal torment are today considered untrue or irrelevant by non-believers and even many Christians. Why were such “myths” so central to Christian belief and practice for so many centuries? Is there any value in understanding why ancient, medieval, and contemporary Christians believe in such things? Or does Christianity need to be demythologized in order to survive in a post-enlightenment age? In this conversation, Rachel Fulton Brown and Fr. Peter Funk, OSB, will consider the history of these “myths” and their relevance for contemporary spiritual practices. ***** How many of you believe in angels...
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A Journey of 100,000 Words

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...begins with a single page. As I was looking through my files this morning, wondering what I had done with the word processing template for my last book, I found this schedule that I kept the autumn that I started work on it. Nostalgia and a reminder of how books are written: one day, one hour at a time. (Click on the images to enlarge.) As I recall, I finished the draft of the first chapter of that book a week later. Working more or less to this schedule, it took me another two and a half years (minus a term or two teaching) to get the book finished and to my publisher. So I guess I'm in for the long haul now with this next book, although I (and my prospective editors) very much hope it is not quite as long as the first one was. If you're curious, you can check that one out here . N.B. The times on the chart only reflect hours I actually spent sitting at my desk, writing.* I know I spent a good deal of time reading as well, but I didn't record that as such.** ...
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Family Matters

I really wish my father were here. Then I wouldn't have to depend upon my friends (that's you, M.B.) and anonymous readers (that's you, Sean) to pat me on the head and tell me how naive I am. "Taxes are bad because they take money from the people who have earned it and make it impossible for them to start new businesses, hire workers, and generally benefit the economy all around." My father loved this argument when he was talking about trying to get his auto shop to make some (any) money, but for the last fifteen years of his life, he worked for the surgery department in a public university and spent the greater part of his time at the V.A. hospital, being paid by, um, the government. He was also, in his younger days, adamantly opposed to any government-supported health care system; by the time he died, he had revised his thinking on this somewhat. The bureaucracy, waste and corruption of the insurance system had convinced him that the poor--whom he spent the...
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Medieval History 101: The Unauthorized Version

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Welcome to my Random Laypersons ! Welcome to the VFM, welcome to the Dread Ilk, welcome to the Reprehensibles, welcome to the Unauthorized , and welcome to the Bears!  This is the History Course you have been waiting for!  Or, rather, it will be, as soon as I get some feedback from you. I was greatly encouraged when Vox asked you the other night about whether you would be interested in such a course and so many of you said, “Yes—as long as it is real  history!” As Fencing Bear would put it, “ Three cheers !”  We are thinking about having a video a week, starting this summer.  The first question that I have is about format. What kind of format would make for a good course online?  What I do not want is to have these videos simply be lectures, the canonical professor-talks-while-the-students-doze lectures you get in the movies before the professor starts encouraging the students to stand on their desks.   I wan...
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