Write your biography in six words.

Putting one's life description into only six words is the subject of a new book, Not Quite What I Was Planning. This review published in The New Yorker gives you the flavor: It started as a reader contest: Your life story in six words. The magazine was flooded with entries. Five…

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Introducing…

Missouri's first State Poet Laureate.  Walter Bargen. I can't tell you how pleased I am by this.  Walter is a first-rate poet and, just if not more importantly, a decent human being. He will be formally introduced on February 13th at the state capitol.  After that, he will serve a…

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PreCambrian Ephemera, Satan’s Snares, and Horse Dung

Writer John Scalzi recently visited the Creation Museum.    He  has written his report, assessed his impressions, and concluded...well, you should read his conclusions for yourself, here. I do  not have Mr. Scalzi's flare for describing expensive nonsense in such finely satirical, subversive, and somewhat detached a manner.  There is also a…

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A Poet Laureate For Missouri

The state of Missouri has never had an official poet laureate.  Like many people, I didn't know that, although unlike many of those many people, I should have.  One of the hats I wear (besides the one in the cool profile photo above) is the president of the Missouri Center…

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Scientist Retracts "Origin of Life" Paper that he Wrote 52 Years Ago

Why would a scientist pull a paper that he had out there for over 50 years? Because he is embarrassed that Creationists are eagerly citing parts of it as proof that life cannot have arisen spontaneously. Here's the story. That is not because he objects to religion, he said... “Religion…

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