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Charles Spurgeon resources
Recently I've returned to the habit of reading a book before bedtime and when eating on my own, leaving aside the digital device and focusing my attention on the printed page. In the past few weeks I've finished Calvin Coolidge's autobiography, Arnold Dallimore's biography of Charles Haddon Spurgeon, a short...
Christian bakery faces discrimination charge over pro-"gay marriage" Bert & Ernie cake
Ashers Baking Co, a Christian-owned chain of bakeries in Co. Antrim, Northern Ireland, has been sent a letter from the Equality Commission for refusing an order to make a cake featuring a picture of Bert and Ernie from Sesame Street, the message "Support Gay Marriage," and the logo of an...
Happy 400th to the Hall Green
Many years ago in 1994 and 1995, B. C. (before children), my wife and I made two trips to Ulster, partly for genealogical research, to retrace the paths of my Ulster Scots (Scotch-Irish) ancestors. On both trips we spent a few nights at a wonderful farmhouse B&B in the eastern...
San Antonio sojourn
I'm nearing the end of two business trips in one week, separated by less than 16 hours at home, both involving graveyard-shift hours. The first was to Altus, in southwestern Oklahoma -- drove down on Wednesday, worked the wee hours of Thursday, Friday, and Saturday, slept a bit, then drove...
Vacation 2009: Day 3: A little bit of "South"
July 25, 2009: Hustontown, Pa. Our arrival was timed so that we could attend the monthly get-together at the Hustontown Volunteer Fire Department, an open stage night where locals gather to play music, to listen to music, and to visit with one another. Refreshments (including homemade pies) are sold to...
E-Tickets, post-election analysis
Catching up with links -- I had two pieces in last week's Urban Tulsa Weekly. My Cityscope column dealt with E-Tickets -- why the Tulsa Police Department needs the electronic citation system advocated by Councilor John Eagleton, and what's the hold up to getting it funded. Here are some earlier...
A great day for <em>all</em> the Irish
My wife and I both laughed out loud this morning when we heard 1170 KFAQ's Chris Medlock relate that when he was a kid his mother sent him to school on St. Patrick Day wearing orange to make a political statement. (And you wondered where his contrary streak comes from.)...
A Cal Thomas sampler
In watching for Cal Thomas's column remembering Jerry Falwell, his erstwhile boss at the Moral Majority, I read through several of his recent columns and was reminded that I need to read him more often. Here's a sampling of a few recent columns. On Tuesday, Thomas looked at Rudy Giuliani's...
Instant runoff voting in Scotland's local elections
Thursday was election day across Britain, with voters picking local government councilors and members of the Scottish Parliament and the Welsh Assembly. For the first time, Scotland will be choosing local authority councilors using the single transferable vote (STV) method, a form of instant runoff voting that is designed to...
Belfast writer wishes Bob wouldn't holler
Belfast hosted a songwriters' festival recently, which featured musicians from Belfast's American sister city, Nashville. (That's an apt pairing. Belfast is the buckle of the Bible Belt of Europe, the most religious region in the UK. Nashville is HQ for the Southern Baptist Convention. And Tennessee was settled by Ulster...
Northern Ireland votes
Northern Ireland, the part of the island of Ireland which remained in the United Kingdom after the 1922 partition, held an election for its assembly earlier this week and the results are in. The Democratic Unionist Party won the most seats, followed by Sinn Fein. The last time we traveled...
Bananafana fo ... what?
Must be something in the air, or maybe it's just aftershocks from 2004, the Year of the Blogger. Bloggers are getting well-deserved recognition from old dead-tree media. I know of at least two bloggers who are under contract for books related to the content of their blogs. That good news...
Scotland and Ulster 1994, and Ulster 1995
NOTE: Entry started on May 16, 2005, extended and published on December 1, 2015. I may add to this. Back in late May and early June 1994, my wife and I spent one week each in Scotland and Ulster. I wrote about our favorite places and where we stayed and...
Thinking strategically in a multi-candidate election
All right, you say, this British election stuff is mildly interesting, but what does it have to do with the situation in Tulsa? Plenty. Britain's "first-past-the-post" electoral system has a fundamental flaw that works against enacting the will of the majority, and Tulsa's upcoming City Council special election -- no...
Ulster accent
The counting for Northern Ireland's 18 seats at Westminster is underway, and while I work I'm watching BBC Northern Ireland's coverage of the results. The results notwithstanding, it's fun to hear Ulster's distinctive accent again -- something I haven't heard in person for nearly 10 years -- to hear each...
This week's <a href=http://www.fridayfive.org>Friday Five</a> -- vacations
Every Friday, a set of five personal questions are posted at the Friday Five website, as a sort of conversation starter for bloggers. I'll give it a try -- maybe I'll do it most weeks. 1. How are you planning to spend the summer [winter]? Working on a couple of...
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