Mr. Locke’s Classroom

Two news stories caught my attention today: It appears that a British citizen of Arabic descent (who also happens to be a member of Parliament) was detained at Dulles Airport and actually had his luggage checked for explosives. The irony here is that he was traveling to America specifically to talk about defeating terrorism, AND [...]

Ok, so my last church metaphor ruffled a few feathers, for better or worse. This one is perhaps less controversial (maybe less original, too) but still worth thinking about. It starts with a familiar metaphor from the bible itself: The church as the “body” of Christ. A body that is made up of individual members. [...]

Wow. My Alma Matter is in the news today: (thanks for the heads-up, Trait!) Oral Roberts University President Richard Roberts issued a written statement on Wednesday saying he is taking an indefinite leave of absence, following intense scrutiny spawned by financial, political and other allegations raised in a lawsuit. This announcement comes eight days after [...]

Folk music means many different things to many different people. Awhile back, when I decided to focus my songwriting exclusively in this genre, I came up with three Principles of Folk Music. They’ve been helpful, but over the past few weeks, another “principle” has been developing in my head. Here’s a shot at putting it [...]

The past four weeks have been pretty lousy. So yesterday didn’t make things any better. I got home from my trip to Pittsburgh, and Molly — my three-legged pet box turtle for the past twelve years — had escaped. Ever since we moved into our ground-level apartment, we sometimes take her out of her aquarium [...]

This new site design is, although still not quite finished, my first attempt at writing a wordpress theme. I’m calling it “Guthrie” after (duh, right?) Woody Guthrie. I hope that it lives up to its namesake as a simple, straightforward, and useful theme. I believe in credit where credit is due, so although I did [...]

Tonight I am proud, happy, and a little sad. Grady and I turned the last page on a novel we’ve been reading together by J.R.R. Tolkien: The Children of Hurin. As novels go, it’s short — 257 pages — but it is a novel, written in language that is not “kid friendly” nor even that [...]