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The divine beauty of planning a Thanksgiving dinner
Thanksgiving is all about the food. That is how must Americans experience Thanksgiving: by eating through it. There are three kinds of Thanksgiving dinners: Always the same. Changing or negotiating between families Eating out. The Same The menu is pretty static for most of us. Turkey and carbs. And for many, the experience is also…
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Thanks
a season of gratitude and anticipation As we prepare, gather, and eat dinners over a long holiday weekend or campout for the “best deals of the season” at the annual shopping bacchanalia, we are drawn by the season to an attitude of gratitude. The funny thing is just how alien thankfulness sounds in 2021. I…
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The Right Decision
We agonize about getting our decisions “right.” When we do this, we show anxiety about the future. If we’re in the middle of deciding, then it isn’t in the future. It’s something happening right now. But once it’s decided, it is no longer present. It immediately becomes the past. The problem is that usually the…
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Kings and the price of granting supremacy
We are all familiar with the saying “Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.” – John Dalberg-Acton. We also know that it doesn’t come from the Bible but from a historian, John Dalberg-Acton. OK, we know the first part, I had to look up who actually wrote it. This is also the stuff…
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The Law Doesn’t Convict
We often treat the laws we all live by as neutral and self-enforcing. They are neither. All laws are written, legislated, and enforced by humans. Often with very different understandings of what they mean. Therefore laws don’t simply arrive. Nor do they simply begin – or pre-exist us. And we all know that laws don’t…
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Saving Time
Returning to Standard Time brings disruption. How much disruption it brings, however, is debatable. And we do debate. Arguing over that one hour—where it goes, when to take it, how to plan it—is a cultural phenomenon we experience twice a year, every year. Scientists have even studied the effects of shifting in and out of…
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The never-ending Halloween
I live in a community that really loves Halloween. Halloween, of course, is a day: October 31. But here, we celebrate with trick-or-treating over two days, with hours long past my children’s curfew. We also have a downtown celebration the Friday night before, so this year, that makes it October 29th, 30th, and 31st. And…
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Starting out will always be hard
The trick is to never start. This sounds like terrible advice. And it is, out of the wider context. Which is actually the source of most of our struggle: context. Getting started is always hard. There is no getting around it. Doing something for the first time, starting a project, starting your week, starting a…