An editorial in Bloomberg  notes that Americans need to learn to live more like Europeans, wanting less and saving more.  "It's become the conventional wisdom that the U.S. economy is built on Americans' endless appetite to buy lots and lots of stuff. Household consumption makes up about 67% of GDP. When the economy falters, we're told spending is our patriotic duty... But suddenly, Americans can’t spend like they used to. Store shelves are emptying, and it can take months to find a car, refrigerator or sofa. If this continues, we may need to learn to do without — and, horrors, live more like the Europeans. That actually might not be a bad thing, because the U.S. economy could be healthier if it were less reliant on consumption.We'...

  Civilian pilot Eugene Burton Ely at the controls of his Curtis bi-plane. He had been flying for about six months. When a young, self-taught pilotnamed Eugene Burton Ely left the deckof the U.S. Navy cruiser USS Birmingham in a primitive stick, bailing wire, and canvas winged Curtis pusher biplane on November 14, 1910 he barely escaped with his life and his aircraft intact but raised the curtain on naval aviation . Ely, a 24 year-old Midwesterner from Iowa, may seem like an unlikely aviator.   But in those early days of aviation, he was not untypical of the kind of daydreaming tinkerers and speed enthusiasts who were drawn to the new opportunities in the sky. He was born in the farming community of Williamsburg, Iowaon October 21, 18...

I'm starting to accumulate blurbs and reviews for my new book, Wisdom of Our Hands, from various colleagues in a variety of sectors. Pete Moorhouse is an educator and artist in the UK and also the author of the book shown, Learning Through Woodwork.   Is it rudely self-promoting for me to share what he and others have said? Which is: "Not hard to be positive!... Wisdom of Our Hands is an exceptional book CONGRATULATIONS!!" Review/ blurb: "This is a book full of wisdom clearly built upon a lifetime’s experience of working with wood and sharing this generously with students of all ages. Like his woodwork this book is beautifully crafted. The book shares a secret - the wonder of working with the hands is within our grasp - it is a call t...

During a lull in the post-attack chaos in Paris a stunned survivor surveys the carnage. Note— Six years ago on unlucky Friday the 13th the terrorist attack on Paris nightspots teeming with attractive young people including those getting down to a loud American death metal band both shocked the world and set off a controversy over the relative worth of some victims vs. those from swarthier or more remote parts of the world and internet bickering over the propriety of selective grief.  On the next Sunday I scribbled a poem before church services which I read to semi-stunned silence.  This is the post I put up reflecting on the terror, telling that story, and, of course, the poem. Coordinated ISIS shootings and bomb blasts left 130 peop...

Last night I went to a 10th anniversary celebration and talk at Crystal Bridges Museum held by Alice Walton, museum founder, Rod Bigelow, museum director and Moshe Safdie, architect. Only original members of the museum were invited. The event reminded me of having met Alice Walton and the original museum director Bob Workman years ago just as construction of the museum had been launched.  I was exhibiting my work at a craft show in downtown Bentonville. I was set up with my work in a building owned by friends Tom and Becky McCoy and Alice came by to see my work. I asked her whether she planned to have crafts in her museum of fine American art, and I suggested the work of John Townsend, Newport, RI cabinet maker that renown art critic Ro...

“I want to stay as close to the edge as I can without going over.   Out on the edge you see all kind of things you can’t see from the center.” —Kurt Vonnegut Kurt Vonnegut was born on Armistice Day, November 11, 1922 in Indianapolis, Indiana. He would go on to become a veteran of another warand the experience shaped him as a human being—one of the great iconoclasts of his time, and a confirmed pacifist. His death on April 11, 2007 at the age of 84 was, as he predicted, not an emphatic period at the end of a long life, but a mere semi-colon (he despised semi-colons.)   He died of a brain injury sustained after slipping and falling in his Manhattanapartment several days earlier.   It was the kind of comic, anti-heroic departur...

  This year for Veterans Day instead of my usual post on the history and meaning of the observation the World War I Armistice on November 11, 1918 I thought I would resurrect an old chestnut that I first read as a Chalice Lighting to open services at the old Congregational Unitarian Congregation in Woodstock, Illinois about 2000.   I read it subsequently when the congregation movedand was renamed the Tree of Life UU Congregation in McHenry.   It was included in my 2004 Skinner House collection, We Build Temples in the Heart. It was based on the memories of a boy from Cheyenne in the 1950s.   Reviewing it now, I am struck that the World War II is fast fading away.   In not too many years the last of them will gone, just as I remember...

A real dodo, Senator Ted Cruz is furious with Big Bird for getting his Fauci Ouchy.  Guess which one laid an egg. Big Bird is in trouble .   Again.   It seems that in a recent Sesame Street segment  he was vaccinated for the Coronavirus even though real six -year-olds —his perennial age—are not yet approved to get it.   But that minor anomaly was not what caused Texas Senator and buffoon Ted Cruz’s head to explode .   It was that the large ambling avian got the shot at all— proof , he claimed, that the PBS staple was just a propaganda shill of the Biden administration and a tool for brainwashing toddlers and their mommies .   He smelled a whiff of conspiracy in the air.   On cue the whole Repugnant messaging machine sprin...

This morning I went to add a padlock and hinges to the cash box on the kid's pay what you want shop. I found the box cleared of all student made merchandise and even some of our shop fixtures were gone.  Not suspecting theft, I opened the cash box and found money inside. The students counted 8 dollars, seventy six pennies and 50 pesos in Mexican currency. We're counting the first day of business as a success. And in wood shop today the students made more products to sell. make, fix and create...

A year before the strike dockworkers loading and unloading goods--mostly bales of cotton--on a New Orleans wharf.   New Orleans was always an anomaly in the South, hell it was unique in all the United States for many reasons.   It was a cosmopolitan cityruled by the French or Spanish for most of its historyand had a part of the US for only 89 years in 1892.   Many of its inhabitants were Creole, a term which originally had simply meant Europeans born in the New World, but in New Orleans had also come to infer those of mixed racial heritage.   The city was long the home not only of slaves, but of a large, and sometimes quite prosperous, Free Black population.   Free Blacks, slaves and their descendants mixed with the European popula...

During the worst of the covid pandemic when all our classes were being taught online, I made a box to allow teaching materials to be passed back and forth between home and school.  We've repurposed that box as a temporary pay what you want shop for students to sell things they've made in woodshop and gain some insight into the world of small business.  Today the kids moved inventory into the box. You can drive by and shop. It is unmanned but open 24 hours. At night you'll need to bring a flashlight. The kids are very excited about this project and I hope you'll join in to make it a success.  Select objects you want and put money in the box.  The Pay what you want shop is mounted to the railing in front of the Clear Spring School offi...

A Soviet era propaganda image glorifying the October Revolution. November 7 and 8 represent one of the most important events of the 20th Century and arguably a fulcrum point history—before things were this way, after quite another.  That presents a significant challenge for a blogger who trades in history.  On one hand the October or Bolshevik Revolution on November 7, 1917—October 25 under the old Orthodox calendar is too big toignore.  On the other the tale is so epic and complex that a wordy son-of-a-bitch like me with a tendency to digress and go off on tangents to explain every detail couldn’t confine myself to a manageable post. That a problem because Americans in general know damned little about what happened beyond that ...

Rex Nelson is one of Arkansas most highly respected journalists. There is a great editorial in today's Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, resulting from the day Rex and I spent in Eureka Springs, with me having the honor of serving as his guide to the Clear Spring School and our Eureka Springs School of the Arts. The article can be found here:  https://www.arkansasonline.com/news/2021/nov/07/city-of-the-arts/ Next week's paper will likely have a column about the Clear Spring School. Watch for it. Make, fix and create...

                         Elijah P. Lovejoy shortly before his death. He was by almost all accounts, a difficult man to like.  Opinionated to the point of bigotry on innumerable subjects.  A totally humorless religious zealotconsumed with the conviction of his own righteousness—and the sinfulness of just about anyone who did not agree with him on everything, down to the comma placement.  But such men—and women—often are what is needed to begin moving the fulcrum of history.  When Elijah P. Lovejoy was cut down in a hail of bullets defendinghis precious printing press from an Alton, Illinois mob on November 7, 1837 he became the first important martyr of abolitionism and helped galvanize the infant movement. Lovejo...

Almost everyone in America will revel in an extra hour of sleep tomorrow morning.  It happens every year, no matter how many announcementsare made on the TV news, radio, newspapers, and now by cute Facebook memes.  And some folks who did fiddle with their time pieces get it wrong—is it spring forward, fall back or the other way around? Anyway, here is a heads up to set your clocks back tonight before you got to bed.  Or if you are a stickler for accuracy wait until 2 am Sunday to set them back to 1 am. It’s vexing.  And some think, foolish.  Take to oft quoted bit of folk wisdom usually ascribed to some Native American sage—Daylight Savings Time is like cutting a strip off the bottom of the blanket and sewing it to the top and...

I invite you to join us on Saturday November 6 for a Open House at the glass and iron studio of Suzanne Reed. I'll be selling books and boxes. The address is 1242 CR 102 and the time from 1 to 4 PM. Make, fix and create...

Yesterday I had an interview with Ozark Public Broadcasting for their program OzarksWatch. It was great to be able to share our wonderful Eureka Springs School of the Arts as the location for the broadcast which will air in February or March. Shown in the photo are host Dr. Jim Baker, and producers Jason Ferber and Brent Slane. Either Jason or Brent will return in December to take video of my box making class in action. I hope this increases awareness of our great school. ESSA-art.org Make, fix and create...

A Rutgers student later painted this imagined view of the first official college football game. According to historians of American sports the first official college football season got underway on November 6, 1869 when teams from Rutgers College, now Rutgers University, and the College of New Jersey, now Princeton University, got together on the Rutgers campus for a rough and tumble game of football which was sanctionedand approved by both colleges.   It was a short season.   The next game was played by the same teams at Princeton one week later.   Season over.   Just two teams and two games. The Queensmen of Rutgers won the first game by a score of 6-4 but the New Jersey Tigers came back in the re-matchto win 8-0.   The anal reten...

  There are many Festivals of Light celebrated by religions and cultures around the world including Christmas, Chanukah, and Winter Solstice observances familiar in the West.   But none are more colorful or enjoyed with such gleeful abandon a Diwali, the Hindu festival of the victory of light over darkness, good over evil, and knowledge over ignorance.   In most of the Northern Hemisphere the five day holiday began this year on November 4, although some Indian states and Hindu diaspora communities start on November 5.   In the Southern Hemisphere it is observed in the Spring. During the celebration, temples, homes, shops, and work places are brightly illuminated.   In most of India the climax of the festival occurs on the third day ...

We know what's wrong with education in America, but what are we willing to fix? The answer, of course, is "Not much." “The division into subjects and periods encourages a segmented rather than an integrated view of knowledge. Consequently, what students are asked to relate to in schooling becomes increasingly artificial, cut off from the human experiences subject matter is supposed to reflect.” (John Goodlad, A Place Called School, McGraw-Hill, 1984, p.266) It should  be noted that kids are not as dumb as typical schooling assumes they might be. They are not empty vessels ready to fill with whatever beliefs and facts we can pour into them. Instead, because they are smart, they realize the differences between what we try to cram in a...

  A popular image of Guy Fawkes assembling barrels of gun power for his plot against Parliament and King James I.   Tonight is Bonfire Night across the Puddle,traditionally a rowdy celebration of the day Guy Fawkes got caught trying to blow upParliament on November 5, 1605.  Originally celebrated on the first anniversary as an official Thanksgiving Day for delivering the King and Parliament from the Catholic plotters, it became an annual official holiday until that statuswas finally dropped in 1859 because of the virulent anti-Catholic toneof the celebration.  Traditionally effigies of Fawkes were burned on bonfires.  Later fireworks also became popular along with considerable public revelry and occasional outbreaks of vandalismai...

The colorful fishing port of Dingle, County Kerry, Ireland has lots of pubs to lure lovers of Irish music . My wife Kathy, the luckiest human on Earth, won a trip to Irelandat a drawing last week during Irish Books, Arts & Music (IBAM) festival at the Irish American Heritage Center in Chicago! Previously she has won $30,000 on a lottery scratch off a few years ago, a big flat screen TV, a quality original oil painting, innumerable rafflesand 50-50 drawings.  And she stays ahead playing scratch offs spending no more than 20 or 30 a week.  I win jack shit.  Our sea-side "cottage" is much larger and more modern that the Murfin Estate stateside. This time the prize was a week at a “cottage” on the sea just outside of Dingle—a beauti...

A friend sent me an interesting link to Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guidonian_hand on the Guidonian Hand. Used in Medieval music, the Guidonian hand was a mnemonic device used to assist singers in learning to sight-sing. From Wikipedia: "Some form of the device may have been used by Guido of Arezzo, a medieval music theorist who wrote a number of treatises, including one instructing singers in sightreading. The hand occurs in some manuscripts before Guido's time as a tool to find the semitone; it does not have the depicted form until the 12th century." Most of us have heard of the idea of tying a string around a finger to help us to remember something we might forget. The Guidonian Hand suggests the potential for our hands ...

Note — Just five years ago yesterday as the U.S. was about to slide into disaster, the thrilling victory of the Chicago Cubs in the World Series ending a 108 year drought lifted my heart and generations of the most faithful fans in baseball.  Since then, were have endured tough times and this past season a promising team stacked by beloved players, most of them veterans of the 2016 triumph sputtered out mid-season and were dealt away in a fire sale.  Heart breaking.  But there were glimmers of hope among the replacements and Cubs fans are every ready to hope for next year.  This is the blog entry I posted the morning of the day after the game. The morning after everything changed.  Barrels of ink have already been spilled.  More ...

King's Chapel and James Freeman, part 2 The Anglican/Episcopalian congregation, King’s Chapel, in Boston, faced a clergy shortage after American independence, so, in 1782, they called congregationalist James Freeman, then 23 years old and fresh out of Harvard. Under Freeman’s influence the congregation revised their Book of Common Prayer to delete references to the Trinity. When the congregation sought to have Freeman ordained, however, the Anglican bishops refused. King’s Chapel chose to take a page from the polity of their neighboring congregationalist churches, and, in 1787, ordained James Freeman themselves – a power which, under congregational polity, is in the hands of congregations, not of bishops or church hierarchy. King...

King's Chapel and James Freeman, part 1 Remember Thomas Emlyn? Emlyn was featured in episodes 42 and 43. He was the first British preacher to definitely describe himself with the word Unitarian. Years after his death, reprints of Emlyn’s book, “An Humble Inquiry into the Scripture Account of Jesus Christ” made their way to America’s shores where they aided and abetted the growing liberalism. In 1757, a group of New Hampshire churches, influenced by Emlyn’s arguments, revised their catechism to delete all references to the trinity. Then an Episcopal Congregation – the oldest Episcopal Congregation in New England – went Unitarian. King’s Chapel in Boston had been established in 1686 as an Anglican Church. In 1782, facing a ...

Charles Chauncy, Universalist, and Jonathan Mayhew, Unitarian Charles Chauncy rejected such Calvinist doctrines as total depravity and predestination. Chauncy was also a universalist. Chauncy completed his major theological work, The Mystery Hid from Ages and Generations , in 1765, but for 20 years could not bring himself to publish it. Finally, late in life, anonymously, he published his book: 400 pages of biblical support for universal salvation, that God wills and ensures the salvation of all humanity. Charles Chauncy is understood by most scholars to have had an Arian Christology. Quick review of Christology. In the first three centuries after Jesus’ death, Christian churches understood Jesus in a variety of ways. In particular, th...

Charles Chauncy Charles Chauncy served the prominent First Church of Boston for 60 years: 35 as assistant minister and another 25 as senior minister. His support of the American Revolution in sermons and pamphlets led him to be called "theologian of the American Revolution". Born into the elite Puritan merchant class that ruled Boston, Chauncy came to oppose the Great Awakening and spoke out against religious enthusiasm stirred up by revival preachers. 1. Despite his Puritan heritage, Chauncy rejected Calvin’s doctrine of total depravity, and argued that human beings have God-given "natural powers" that were meant to be nurtured toward "an actual likeness to God in knowledge, righteousness, and true holiness". 2. Chauncy and other more...

The IWW relied on street meetings like this one in New York state to organize workers.  When Spokane, Washington authorities tried to shut them down in 1909 they sparked a legendary Free Speech Fight. I didn’t start out to be probably the greatest landmark battle for free speech and free assembly in Americanhistory.   It grew out of the practical, if militant concerns of a labor union trying to establish itselfin an all important local industry—the lumber trade of the Pacific Northwest. But on November 2, 1909 the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) launched a Free Speech Fight in the streets of Spokane , Washington.   Before the first day was out 103 workers trying to mount a literal wooden soap box on Stevens Street had been h...