I’m holding a jagged piece of concrete, about the size of hand. One side Is flat, and covered with brilliant blue paint, the other porous and broken. 20 years ago today someone, among tens of thousands of jubilant Germans took a sledge hammer to the Berlin Wall and this particular piece broke free. A few…

I wonder how the ACLU would have responded to Abraham Lincoln’s “Proclamation of Thanksgiving” issued in Washington, D.C. October 3, 1863. He sure was no advocate of the “separation of faith and state.” During his administration, President Lincoln issued many orders. While perhaps not as immediately strategic as his war room decisions or as revolutionary as…

They’re playing Christmas music in my coffee shop this morning. By now we understand the marketing strategy: push the boundaries of Yule back one or two days a year. Do we actually spend more this way? Thanksgiving used to be the threshold, with the Friday after “The Big Eat” being traditionally the biggest Christmas  shopping…

Today it was announced that the unemployment rate hit 10.2%, the highest it has been since April 1983. This is startling news since it would seem that if we are crawling out of the recession less jobs would be lost. Unfortunately that is not the case as 190,000 jobs have been lost in October. Today…

More from Beliefnet and our partners
More from Beliefnet and our partners