A distinguished historian gallantly tried to rescue Article the First from absurdity. The post How a distinguished historian tried to salvage the would-be first amendment appeared first on…

On February 28, 1979, my paternal grandfather, Alex, sent a letter to the management of Northwestern Steel and Wire on its 100th anniversary: I wish to extend my congratulations to your company on…

Jungian psychology is the study of the psyche—the totality of the mind, soul, and unconscious processes that shape human behavior. Why do we see ourselves one way while behaving another? Why can we…

Old Fort Niagara is a bit of an unusual site for me to cover. Despite being at the mouth of the Niagara River on Lake Ontario, it's not really a coastal fort, because 20 miles up the Niagara River is…

Welcome to our weekly study! Each week, our reading plan will take us through three different parts of the Bible: a psalm, a passage from Proverbs, and a few chapters from another book as we journey…

This is a dharma talk I gave at the New Paltz Zen Center on June 19, 2026. It was during a meditation retreat which will end with our student Monshin’s first dharma talk. Play the audio below,…

The Binding of Isaac is a very strange story. I’m not talking about the video game with the same name, but instead the original biblical story.

For Father's Day, I'm remembering Dad (Harold D. Burk , 1909-1978). Sis and I rediscovered this snapshot while assembling content for a photo book of our family's first decade. Dad has a big smile on…

When, a few years ago, an early-modern manuscript translation of Tacitus was discovered in Lambeth Palace, the writer's identity was at first a mystery (see here ). The piece was in the neat hand of…

as usual, it's more complicated than the Posters considered

A learning-oriented distillation of game theory resources: Schelling, Yale, Model Thinking, Game Theory 101, and evolutionary games. The point is not memorizing formulas, but learning to see…