Wednesday Blog

  • Why I enjoyed Netflix’s “The Two Popes”

    Netflix’s new two-hour film The Two Popes starring Jonathan Pryce as Pope Francis and Sir Anthony Hopkins as Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI is theatre, pure and simple. It falls into one of the most classic sorts of plays, a dialogue between two men with similar positions yet very different experiences. While not all the conversations Read more

  • Four Months Later

    The simplest way of saying it is that even though I’ve already been in graduate school for the better part of the last four years, I was not prepared for the intensity of work that I have found myself undertaking over the last sixteen weeks. It has now been four months since I left Kansas Read more

  • Let’s have Gender-Neutral Pronouns

    This is a response to a recent Opinion piece by Geoff Nunberg published by WBUR-FM. English’s third person pronouns really haven’t changed much since the Middle Ages. My biggest question with many of the alternative, gender-neutral, third person pronouns like “xe” or “ze” or “zhe” is how should they be pronounced? Between those three I Read more

  • Twenty Years, Two Home Towns

    This Friday marks a significant anniversary for my parents and I, one which has so thoroughly impacted our lives since that I feel compelled to commemorate it. Twenty years ago, on 14 June 1999, my mother and I arrived in Kansas City, her hometown, and my new city. My father had driven down a few Read more

  • Equality under the Law

    Words and phrases are powerful tools, and the emotions that we attach to particular words only begin to stick once certain actions are taken based upon the intent of those words. In the United States the debate over the issue of abortion has long been controlled by the social conservatives on the right. Predominately made Read more

  • Total Control: TV, Streaming, and my Health

    Let me begin by saying, I love the variety of programming that’s available through online video databases like YouTube and streaming services like Netflix and Amazon Prime. I spend much of my free time watching old shows on YouTube, clips from films, original content by YouTubers, and news reports on the same platform. Equally, I Read more