On September 8, 2022 came the cry: “The Queen is dead. Long live the King.” And so the wheel of history turned, and the Windsors (or should it be the Saxon-Coburg-Gothas or the Mountbattens?) continued to rule. Years ago, I watched Helen Mirren’s excellent performance as Queen Elizabeth II in…

Track and field may be the sport that’s the easiest to understand. Who can run the fastest? Who can throw the farthest? Who can jump the highest or farthest? The competition goes straight to the heart of questions about who has the superior level of baseline athleticism. Even though there…

I wanted to be a writer for as long as I can remember. In my youth, writing never made it onto my list of potential career choices, though. Writing for a living never seemed practical. In addition, although I’ve always been outspoken, I recognized the powerfully self-censoring shield I live…

Much of the world is failing. It has always been so, in one way or another. Destruction lays many of the markers of history, as does mass death. We live in a time of plague. It is 2022. The Covid-19 pandemic has ravaged the world, and now monkeypox is spreading…

Hustle is the story of Stanley Sugerman (played by Adam Sandler), an exhausted middle-aged NBA scout, who, on the verge of giving up on his dream of coaching in the league, is revitalized by his quest to get his newly-discovered talent, Bo Cruz (played by Juancho Hernangómez), into the NBA…

A woman I used to follow on Twitter is a big true crime fan and was always giving recommendations. One weekend, I binge-watched some documentaries she shared that were narrated by family members of people who had committed heinous crimes (I forget the name of the series). What stood out…

I was surprised to learn that one of the collective nouns for a group of vampires is a “basement.” I’ve most frequently heard a group of vampires be referred to as a nest. Basements are underground, dark and damp. They may be useful at times, but nobody wants to live…

Trying to Understand the Ritual Human Sacrifice at Pathways Ministries in Albion, Jamaica (Part 3) — I’ve spent the last several weeks watching documentaries and reading about violent cults. While I’ve learned a lot, it’s become clear to me that I need to go back to the beginning and consider: What exactly is a cult? The impetus for the series I’m writing is the ritual human…

No matter what label they take (covert, malignant, vulnerable, etc.), all narcissists are pathologically self-focused, venal, and controlling. An effective mask for this is often manufactured “devotion” to a target or some cause greater than the narcissist (e.g., religion, social justice, family). They present themselves as self-sacrificing and demand praise…