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On Thursday, February 19, 2009, U.S. President Barack Obama made his first foreign tour as head of state, traveling to his northern neighbor, the gentle giant, Canada. President Obama restored a decades-old tradition of presidents making Canada the destination of their first foreign trip.
By a coincidence of history, Abraham Lincoln and Charles Darwin were born the same day--February 12, 1809. Last week marked their birth bicentennial. These history-making, world-changing men from two very different environments effected major revisions in thinking which, for better or worse, have shaped much of our modern Western culture.
Back in 2009, I visited my parents in the New Jersey town where I grew up. On a bright Sunday afternoon, we journeyed by car a short distance to the Monmouth Battlefield State Park, just outside town. This was the site of the last major battle in the north, during the American Revolution, on June 28, 1778, and it was the largest one-day battle of the war (in...
An observer of the modern scene recently opined that people today don't have many friends; some have none. In the hectic pace of modern life, it seems that many do not take the time or have the opportunity to develop lasting friendships.
Our local newspaper last week reprinted a Groundhog Day cartoon by Mike Luckovich from the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. It depicted two gentlemen in old-fashioned garb staring forlornly at Punxsutawney Phil who has keeled over (having fainted or died). One gent says to the other, "He saw his 401K." We might display a guarded smile after reading this sign of...
February 12, 2009 marks the 200th anniversary of the birth of naturalist Charles Darwin, author of The Origin of Species. It is also the 200th anniversary of the birth of U.S. President Abraham Lincoln. Each man is known for powerful words that changed our world. But one is still widely embraced as a hero, while the legacy of the other is increasingly being...
These are hard words. They're easy to say, and easy to ask for, but much harder to give—at least sometimes. I'm convinced that, much of the time, I'm just about the most easy-going person in the world. At least, I feel like the most easy-going person I know. But other times...
Besides being one of the best Super Bowl games I've seen, this year's sports extravaganza claimed my keen interest for another reason. During half time, the music superstar who performed four of his best-known hits with his band of almost four decades was once our Freehold, New Jersey neighbor from around the corner. And what better place to watch this show than...
If you've stayed in a hotel or motel in North America, no doubt you have opened the top drawer of your bedside nightstand and found a Gideon Bible or New Testament. It usually is a black, brown or red-covered hardback book with the Gideon symbol, a two-handled pitcher and torch, on the front. Gideon Bibles were standard issue in motels long before TV and...
Each year in January our community holds a ceremony commemorating religious freedom in America. My wife and I have attended several of these memorials over the years. They are celebrated here because it was in January, 1777 that Thomas Jefferson, Edmund Pendleton, George Mason, George Wythe and Thomas Ludwell Lee met at Weedon's Tavern in Fredericksburg,...