Ramesses’s temples at Abu Simbel are awesome for two reasons. The first is the incredible novelty of their construction: it’s dug into the rock face rather than built as temples commonly were. The second, however, is what happened to them in the 1960s. Ramesses II Ramesses never did anything smallContinue Reading
This article was originally written for my Wicca website, currently undergoing updates. To my knowledge, there is a single book and website written by a Christian Wiccan. That website has changed multiple times, rendering my original footnotes useless. As of May 25, 2014, the website’s domain is expired, leaving nothingContinue Reading
This weekend I attended Steamtopia in Dearborn, MI. As usual, I arrived with multiple outfits, as is standard for attendees at a steampunk convention. However, this time the collection included the Loki jacket about which I have been posting. It’s still not finished – it will eventually have a goldContinue Reading
I cross paths with fair amount of people very angry and jaded about religion, not merely non-religious but actively hostile toward it. One of the very common arguments is if we’d get rid of religion we’d get rid of excuses to go to war. I’m calling anthropological bullshit. War isContinue Reading
Studying both history and religion, I cross paths with a fair number of people angry and jaded about both specific religions and religion in general, and they support their position with history. Rather than simply being non-religious, these individuals are actively against it, calling it manipulative, fraudulent, and/or violent. SometimesContinue Reading
Over the years, I’ve heard a variety of theories concerning the mental conditions of some of the most notorious figures in history. Hitler is most often invoked, suspected of any number of conditions including paranoid schizophrenia and bi-polar disorder (formerly known as manic depression). Stalin’s behavior has been attributed toContinue Reading
My grandfather was a civilian employee of the U.S. military. He worked in the Pentagon “as the plaster was still drying.” He wasn’t some super secret scientist or anything like that. He was a self-educated administrator who periodically got to meet some pretty famous people. Somewhere’s there a newspaper photoContinue Reading
The topic of the European Witch-Craze, stretching roughly between the late 15th century and the mid-17th century, is a complex topic. It’s very easy to simply disregard it as barbaric and superstitious, and, indeed, academia did exactly that until the 1960s. That doesn’t mean you can’t find material about witchContinue Reading
On Saturday, I will by cycling 62 miles (100 km, which we call a metric century) in the Trek 100 and am looking for pledges. All money goes toward research into fighting childhood cancers. Currently, I’m $14 short of my goal of $124, which is $2 for each mile biked.Continue Reading
The last few days I’ve been working on one of my other websites, Steaming Apparel. It’s designed primarily for those who are just starting to costume for steampunk, and I built it because I kept encountering people who: Thought steampunk outfits have to be really expensive Felt the couldn’t participateContinue Reading