Let’s Talk About the Holidays

...tension between tradition and its conflict with modern life (note Habermas’ 2010 dialog with Jesuit scholars if you want to fall down a ponderous and inconclusive philosophical rabbit hole). Then there’s what I call the fake snow on Hollywood Boulevard problem. Living in a Mediterranean climate, as we do, is confusing. The days are short, but the hills are green. The fake snow gets coated in smog. Here’s the problem. The Christmas story is overlai...

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Take a Summer Viking Break

...ng or canning. This means it’s the perfect time for a Viking break. Back in 2010 Norweigian oil tycoon Sigurd Aase funded the construction of a brand new badass Viking longship, the Draken Harald Hårfagre. It’s the first Viking longship with its own website and gift store. The ship made it to the U.S., a reminder that Columbus wasn’t the first European to make that particular journey. Please kick back this weekend and take your own Viking break. I...

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2022 in Review: Cats, Mushrooms and Politics

...wed up in one of the traps I was monitoring. Her owner, who was expected a baby soon had become distraught. When I found her cat in the trap I cried. I also set up an automatic feeder in the garden of St. John’s Episcopal Cathedral so that I could keep an eye on the feral cat population that some nice folks in the community had helped me trap and neuter. We managed to capture and neuter four out of the five cats that live at the cathedral. They ar...

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Campfire Cooking: Fish in Clay (& Vegetarian Options!)

...nce the process is the same. You can dress sturdy veggies like carrots and baby potatoes with fat and herbs, wrap them with leaves, cover that with clay and throw it on the coals. Pascal also recommended trying fruit, like pears. He likes pears with native California black sage. Better still, you can skip the clay and use grass instead, which is much easier for impromptu cooking. Grass is good insulator, maybe not good enough for a delicate trout,...

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Saturday Tweets: Rainy Day Tweets

...✊🏻✊🏽✊🏿✊🏼 (@Pegerella) December 3, 2018 Oh, the beauty of seeing a Canadian baby being born. pic.twitter.com/SBmO8FBMK1 — Lloyd Legalist (@LloydLegalist) December 2, 2018 The gilet jaunes protests are geographically portentous- suburban and rural protestors angry at a city that both represents and materially benefits from elites’ decisions on who should pay for climate change mitigation. — david a banks (@DA_Banks) December 3, 2018 I’ve watched thi...

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