Dear son, Today is Veterans Day and you are spending, as a soldier, your first holiday honoring soldiers. We all are grateful to those who serve their country in uniform. We express it openly on this day. Now that day includes you. On this occasion, although I am technically unqualified to be anybody’s father, I […]

Read about Henry VIII joining church and state, American comedian Kathy Griffin, historian Will Durant, American film director Mike Nichols, French nuclear physicist Marie Curie, French statesman Émile Combes separating church and state, American science author Carl Sagan, and more …

It was on this date, November 4, 1960, that American comedian and actress Kathy Griffin was born Kathleen Mary Griffin in Oak Park, Illinois. At about age 18, she moved to Los Angeles to study drama at the Lee Strasberg Theatre and Film Institute, becoming a member of The Groundlings improvisational comedy troupe like her […]

Read about the devil’s violinist Niccolò Paganini, the late conversion of Constantine the Great, the religious tolerance of Cyrus the Great, the Deism of John Adams, Martin Luther’s Reformation, the free speech of pornographer Larry Flynt, Annie Laurie Gaylor’s fight for freedom from religion, and more …