May 6th, 2010
MM can not resist the jaw-dropping Pope story of the day. According to the Christian Science Monitor, Pope Benedict has affirmed the authenticity of the much-maligned Shroud of Turin. The cloth, which has been scientifically dated to about 800 years ago, says the embattled head of the Catholic church, was nonetheless the actual garment of [...]
Apr 14th, 2010
Hi there. Bet you thought I was gone for good. Ta-da! I’m not. MM has been meaning to pop up again, spending a lot of time meaning to, and letting all kinds of perfect entry points pass. New Year’s. President’s Day. And, for Christ’s sake, Easter! What better moment to rise again, after certain death? [...]
Oct 20th, 2009
The worship of idols has been given a bad rap ever since the Bible’s golden calf. Putting your faith in earthly things, rather than heavenly ideas, was considered heretical, not to mention embarrassing and primitive. But as you might be able to tell from MM’s obsessions with skulls, stones, and trees, I’m actually a big [...]
Oct 16th, 2009
Until I watched part of Ken Burns’ new documentary America’s Best Idea last night, I hadn’t given much thought to the “why” of national parks. Which is odd, because as many loyal MM readers know, I grew up in and around Acadia National Park in Maine, then the 2nd-most-visited park in the country. But I [...]
Sep 23rd, 2009
Silly me, thinking the swine flu mythography had reached a dead end back in May. It had proved a fruitful topic then, what with blaming the Mexicans, isolating Afghan pigs, etc. But then I got a detailed warning email from the writing residency I will be attending in October on how to prepare to not [...]
Sep 15th, 2009
The brilliant, devastating moments in “Aftermath”, the new play by Erik Jensen and Jessica Blank just opened at the New York Theatre Workshop, don’t strike you all at once. Rather, the details from the daily lives of Iraqi civilian-refugees since the beginning of the war that ravaged their country accumulate slowly and deftly, in words [...]
Sep 2nd, 2009
Well, not really. But my latest post on The Faster Times seems to have actually garnered comments, and was reprinted on something called Alternet, so if you are one of MM’s elite readership who has not read said post I humbly suggest you do so. It’s about the whole idea of writing about science and [...]