It’s not your typical title — “Charles the Third, by the Grace of God, of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and of His other Realms and Territories King, Head of the Commonwealth, Defender of the Faith.” When it comes to titles, no one beats the British, and as we’ve seen in the…

Still rockin’ at 73 — There are very few dates circled on my calendar: my kids’ birthdays, the Arsenal vs. Tottenham derby, Christmas, Easter, and today, September 23rd. That’s because, on this day in 1949, the world welcomed the second-most important infant of the past 2,000 years: Bruce Frederick Joseph Springsteen. …

If you read nothing else today, read these — It’s time again for the regular roundup of my favorite articles from the past month or so, and this one has been the most difficult. The difficulty does not stem from a lack of quality stories, but from a combination of Medium madness and personal ineptitude. I’m sure neither of…

A dirty little musical secret one year later — At the start of this month I posted a Throwback Thursday article about songs from the 1980s that I simply cannot stand. The goal (as with any Throwback Thursday piece) was to draw attention to an older story that readers may have missed back when I had 7 followers. …

Part Thirteen of the ‘Not Many Mighty’ series — If you’ve been following this series from the beginning, you may recall that the original premise was that while we have enshrined the heroes of the Bible in marble and stained glass, they were just as screwed up as the rest of us. That being the case, as we reach…

It was bound to happen eventually — It’s been a weird couple of days, to put it mildly. After nine hours of watching the funeral of Queen Elizabeth II yesterday and all the emotions that came with that, I just couldn’t bring myself to write a single word. I got up this morning assuming that things would…

Celebrate the freedom to read — Today marks the start of Banned Books Week in the United States, an annual event celebrating the freedom to read. The fact that such a week is even necessary in a democracy speaks volumes by itself, but it is as crucial now as it has ever been. According to the…

And yet they persist — There have been countless tragedies, atrocities, and generally heinous things that have occurred (and still occur) in the history of mankind, and after they have ended a few questions always remain. How could this have happened? How can we keep it from ever happening again? What is myth and what…

Admit it; you’ve been watching more of them this week, too. — Like many other people, I have been watching more films about kings and queens since the passing of Queen Elizabeth II last week. It’s not a new thing for me, though; as an American who gets a new leader every four or eight years, the monarchy is something that has…