In a previous essay, I addressed the idea of changing the architecture of gyms due to the pandemic’s spread inside closed spaces. In this essay, I address the same issue for schools. Since the three ‘Cs’ , confined spaces, close contact and crowded places, are the main...

Did you ever imagine you would find yourself living in a time of historical importance? Does it overwhelm you? Or intrigue you? Or do you wish it would just all go away? 

The historian in me is intrigued. The mythologist is in rapture. Both those sides of my work is, ho...

We have this new bug among us, COVID 19, that is wreaking havoc with our lives. So let me remind you, and offer a suggestion for the future, that we’ve been living with the viruses since the beginning of time. Indeed, the only people who don’t have to live with them ar...

As a story teller, I tell many stories about overcoming monsters. Monsters are the number one device throughout mythology that teach many lessons. 

Of the many characters in myths, mothers are a stock persona that stand for many things.

What do mothers and monsters have...

Last Saturday night, I returned to the Odyssey Theater in Los Angeles to see a new play by writer, actor and poet, Pat Kinevane, who hales from Dublin.

Kinevane says his play, Before, is about love. Nah. It’s about the quirks of fate that happen to us, and how love gets...

Long before there was an Europe or Christianity or a Christian empire, there were several empires in the Near and Far East. The Near East (Middle East) is the location I am addressing today. Let me preface my remarks by admitting my own longing for a return to the anci...

This is the motto I’ve lived, for the past 26 years. Though I didn’t discover the sculpture with its message until I visited Washington DC in 1998, the study of history and mythology have filled my days since 1992. 

History discovered me way back in 1966. Mythology grab...

The word of the week is, modesty.

We will look at this word in its third use: “Behaviour, manner, or appearance intended to avoid impropriety or indecency.” (OED)  A few of the synonyms for modesty are, decorum, decency, simplicity, and my favorite, lack of pretension. 

...

The word that keeps going round my head this week is CHAPERONE. Synonym words are, supervisor, companion, duenna (Spanish) and minder. We are looking at this word because, I suggest, we bring it back, into the modern lexicon. 

Why?

Because young people, when left to thei...

The writers life is about editing. It’s that first line of defense before we let our manuscript loose into the hands of those who will give it a first reading.  That first edit is a magical time because it’s when a writer discerns they either have something good, or th...