Saturday, February 4, 2012

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Iceland – A magical place

Iceland – A magical place

Are you ready to live through winter-like conditions next summer? Then you might want to watch a tiny island country for the foreseeable future. It’s Iceland, a special place for many reasons, and well worth your time getting to… Read the rest

Pedaling to Shangri-La

January 19, 2010 by  
Filed under Asia - Pacific, Culture & Religion, Travel

Pedaling to Shangri-La

“What would possess you to do such a thing?”

This is a question Claire and I get from Americans when they hear of our tandem bicycle travels in third-world countries and our perseverance in spite of difficult conditions. Of… Read the rest

“Same Same” (but different)

December 10, 2009 by  
Filed under Asia - Pacific, Culture & Religion

“Same Same” (but different)

Poor facsimile copy of a book [Photo by Claire Rogers]A knock off, a fake, a facsimile. Piracy in Vietnam floods the streets like monsoon rains. Street vendors of old Saigon sling armloads of poor representations of original art, music, movies and books.

Wrapped in plastic as carefully as… Read the rest

The New China

November 4, 2009 by  
Filed under Culture & Religion

The New China

Small Chinese City [photo: Bob Rogers]After the tumultuous years of the opium wars and near the end of Great Britain’s quasi control of much of eastern China, the British wisely determined to keep one portion that would be the easiest for them to defend… Read the rest

Good Christian Americans

October 14, 2009 by  
Filed under Religion

Good Christian Americans

If you thought that Bible-thumping, holy rollin’, Confederate flag waving, southern-fried, “come to Jesus” religion was a thing of the past, think again.Church sign

If you haven’t seen it recently, rent the DVD of “Inherit the Wind,” starring Spencer… Read the rest

Is Intelligent Design science?

September 5, 2009 by  
Filed under Current Events, Featured Article, Religion

Is Intelligent Design science?

Few topics get my dander up more than the assertion that Intelligent Design (ID) should be taught in the public schools as a scientific theory. There is too much evidence to indicate that ID is not science, although Gregory… Read the rest

Who are the Uyghurs?

Who are the Uyghurs?

Editor’s Note: Events of recent weeks in far western China’s Xinjiang Autonomous Region, prompted this submission from someone who has been there, and who must – for now – remain anonymous.


The ReporterUrumqi, Xinjiang is a fascinating… Read the rest

What We Know About the BIBLE that Ain’t So – 2

August 6, 2009 by  
Filed under Religion

What We Know About the BIBLE that Ain’t So – 2

Moses with the tablets containing the Law“Not only are most Americans ignorant of the contents of the Bible, but they are also almost completely in the dark about what scholars have been saying about it for the past two centuries” reports Bart Ehrman, a well… Read the rest

The Language Barrier

December 29, 2008 by  
Filed under Culture & Religion

The Language Barrier

When my husband retired from the Foreign Service and the United Nations, we decided to visit our children, Jeffrey and Leslie, who were attending the University of Arizona in Tucson, Arizona. It didn’t take long before we fell… Read the rest

The God Delusion

December 20, 2008 by  
Filed under Books, Religion

The God Delusion

“The genie of religious fanaticism is rampant in present-day America, and the Founding Fathers would have been horrified,” so reports Richard Dawkins early on in his best-selling book, The God Delusion.

He also shares the following 1981 quote from… Read the rest

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