Wednesday Blog

  • Natural History

    There’s a big problem with a lot of older anthropology exhibits in natural history museums around the globe, namely that they were built in the last two centuries often using either old and out of date information about the peoples they seek to describe, or like the old bronzes depicting the variety of humanity in Read more

  • Electric Cars

    Last week I got the opportunity to ride along with my parents in my Mom’s Tesla on a cross-country road trip for the first time. We traveled across Missouri the 3.5 hours from Kansas City to St. Louis to visit relatives, many of whom we hadn’t seen in nearly 2 years because of COVID. When Read more

  • Freedom from Fear

    When I worked as a Teaching Assistant for the US History II class (1877-present) at the University of Missouri-Kansas City, the week that we’d discuss the Great Depression and the New Deal, I would always highlight President Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s Four Freedoms and spend a good deal of time discussing them, what they meant to Read more

  • How Space Exploration Can Unite Us

    My Dad woke me up just before 6 am on Christmas morning to watch the long-anticipated launch of the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) from the European Space Agency’s spaceport in French Guiana. Over the past few months, I’d heard and read a great deal about Webb, the engineering behind it, and the mission it Read more

  • Christmas and the Passing of the Seasons

    I think the general feelings I get at different times of the year were instilled very early on. I remember in first grade being told that if the weather in March came in “like a lion” it would surely go out “like a lamb,” meaning if the month started with bad weather, snow, ice, or Read more

  • Federalism vs. Regionalism

    A few evenings ago, I read an editorial by the frequent New York Times contributor Charles M. Blow about what he called the first signs of the next civil war looming on the horizon. Blow’s argument boils down to the idea that today’s political actors on the right who accept our most recent former President’s Big Lie that the Read more