Lionel Deimel’s Web Log

We may not always want to admit it, but our behavior is influenced by what we see in the media. When we see beautiful and seemingly competen...

She is hardly the only person to use the locution, but Rachel Maddow repeatedly refers to a state as “The Great State of [wherever].” (I hav...

Today is the129th anniversary of the birth of Russian composer Sergei Sergeyevich Prokofiev. Well, maybe it is, anyway. The composer apparen...

The president is eager to “open up” the economy, and governors—not all of them Republican—are beginning to relax regulations designed to pre...

NPR reported today that the World Health Organization has enumerated six prerequisites for ending a coronavirus lockdown. They are the foll...

This blog was originally intended for “quick takes,” but my essays here have often been anything but. On Facebook, however, I often post tho...

Some years ago, I attended a workshop sponsored by the Anglican Fellowship of Prayer. I participated in one session on the structure of coll...

I was particularly struck by an op-ed in The New York Times by Charlie Warzel, “ Trump Chooses Disaster as His Re-Election Strategy .” This...

I picked up limes and tonic at the supermarket yesterday. After dinner, I planned on having a gin and tonic. When I took the gin bottle out ...

For the sake of argument, suppose that we could immediately test everyone in the country for the coronavirus and instantly get test results....

Why can’t this administration get anything right? Not only is President Trump’s latest travel ban essentially useless and a great inconvenie...

The media have made much of the reputed progressive/moderate split in the Democratic Party. The split is real of course, though it must be a...

The political landscape has changed rapidly during the past week. The departure of Buttigieg, Klobuchar, Steyer, and then Bloomberg from the...

Americans are increasingly anxious about coronavirus and its potential to cause a pandemic. Public statements from the governments of both C...

Carolyn Winfrey Gillette is a Presbyterian minister who is also a hymn writer. America’s recent political upheavals have inspired her to com...

 The final and much-anticipated poll results from the Des Moines Register  were not released yesterday. Questions about the validity of the ...

From the competition between Democratic presidential candidates so far, one might be led to think that policy positions are the most importa...

I have written a number of collects, either for general use or for use in particular circumstances. As the Senate prepares to try the Presid...

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell wants a Senate “trial” of President Trump without the introduction of any documents or witnesses. A...

A few days ago, I received a Blu-ray disk of Bad Santa  from Netflix. For some reason, I had put this movie in my queue some time ago, and I...