Today, January 25, is the day Anne Boleyn and Henry VIII wed in secret for the second time in 1533. From the Catholic perspective, it was bigamy, in that the Pope had not released Henry from his first marriage. The marriage was also wildly unpopular with his subjects because Anne was thought of as a… Read more An Anne Boleyn Analog in Modern China?
Iconic musical superstar David Bowie has passed away from cancer at the age of 69. His birthday was January 8th, 1947 and I am convinced he held onto life until 2016 because he wanted “69” to show up on every obituary. His overt sexuality and wry sense of humor would both be satisfied by that,… Read more David Bowie: Amazing and Transgressively Gender Fluid
Welcome to Niki Incorvia, who is here on my blog to tell us all about her first book, Monarchial Roles: Redefining Religion and Family under Henry VIII and Mary I! Henry VIII and Mary I are a bit of a mystery to us in the twenty-first century, their lives and personalities are crafted together from… Read more Monarchial Roles by Niki Incorvia
On this day in 1941 the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor in a surprise attack that would rip through the American psyche in a way unequaled until the terrorist attacks on 9/11/2001. The next day my paternal grandfather, Henry Cornelius, signed up the US Navy and served in World War II. He wanted, he said, “a… Read more Pearl Harbor Day and My Grandfather
I have Asperger’s syndrome. I like things that make sense. You know, if A = B, and C = B, then A is equivalent to C because they both equal B. People’s opinions, especially their sociopolitical opinions, do not follow this at all, and it drives me bananas because I cannot grasp how they cannot… Read more Illogical Perceptions and Reactions
Some of the students and staff at Cambridge University suggest the school should remove famous historian David Starkey from a university promotional campaign, since Starkey keeps saying racist things. For instance, during “an appearance by the historian on BBC Newsnight in 2011 when he referred to Enoch Powell’s ‘rivers of blood’ speech as being right… Read more David Starkey, Bluff King Hal, UKIP, and Donald Trump
Islamic extremist terrorism didn’t just pop up overnight because it was a natural outgrowth of the Muslim religion. Islamic terrorism is the result of really bad colonialist, money-grubbing meddling by the West in the hopes of keeping rich Western mitts on those big ol’ oil fields under Arab lands. The foreign policies of the West… Read more How Failed American Foreign Policy and the Iraq War has Fueled Terrorism in the Middle East.
Terrorists are monsters, but no one KNOWS they are a monster. Almost everyone creates a script inside their head justifying their own cause and demonizing others. The Nazis told themselves that the Holocaust was “right” because the “Jews were a danger to Germany”. The soldiers and CIA handlers who tortured innocent Iraqis told themselves they… Read more Terrorists WANT Anti-Islamic Backlash
As part of another skirmish in the war on women, some Men’s Rights Activists (MRAs) have formed a movement dedicated to trying to bully women into remaining virgins lest they never, ever marry. These MRAs are on various forms of social media demanding that all men band together and declare that if a woman cannot… Read more Cherry Bomb
Have any of you seen the movie Fed Up? It’s on Netflix now and it is absolutely magnificent. “Fed Up is a 2014 American documentary film directed, written and produced by Stephanie Soechtig. The film focuses on the causes of obesity in the US, presenting evidence showing that the large quantities of sugar in processed… Read more Fed Up