Holidays

My father in law died this year at the age of 96. Dick served in World War II and towards the end of his life his wartime experiences became more and more significant to him. Although he never saw combat, the significance of serving the country in an important war, perhaps the last war in which right and wrong were fairly clear, never left him and turned out to be one of his most cherished memories.

Since World War II, the righteousness of American involvement in war has not been so clear, and […]

I love Thanksgiving as much as the next person. Sharing a feast with friends and family, a few days off at home – cranberry sauce and mashed sweet potatoes with caramelized apples. Not to mention the pumpkin pie that Rich bakes from scratch, using fresh pumpkins from local farms.

Still, history is written by the winners, and like so many of our holidays the actual history of the Thanksgiving holiday is lost to the mists of legend. According to most accounts, our Thanksgiving holiday commemorates the feast held by the Pilgrims […]

I posted this a few years ago but it’s still my favorite post for this time of year.  Because the earth orbits at a slight tilt, and the tilt of the orbit changes over time, the celestial equator is always moving and the vernal equinox is always moving along the ecliptic, the apparent path of the Sun around the Earth from our perspective.  We call this the “Precession of the Equinoxes,” and that is what we mean when we talk about the Age of Aquarius, the Age of […]