I’ve had a lifelong fascination with diverse traditions of symbolism, emblemry, iconography, and heraldry, and the ways in which distinctive and carefully designed visual images can distill and capture the essence of identity, values, and relationships of significance. This, plus my lifelong love…
[Originally posted 1 February 2015] “What’s the deal with you and badgers?” It’s a fair question, and one I’m asked not infrequently by both longtime friends and new acquaintances. Admittedly, badgers are pretty far removed from my other writings and scholarship–and in some ways my badger interest…
[Originally posted 7 December 2014] In 1903, President Theodore Roosevelt set off on a campaign tour by train across the western United States, stopping in various communities along the way. In the small Kansas town of Sharon Springs, he attended church service and made the acquaintance of a…
[Originally posted 28 November 2014] What is a badger? A simple question, but not such a simple answer, as the category of “badger” is actually quite a malleable and dynamic one. Historically, and across many cultures throughout the world, badgers have long been considered a smallish type of bear,…