Kathleen and Eldridge Cleaver in the early 1970s. (Image Source)

I'm currently reading "PTL:"The Rise and Fall of Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker's Evangelical Empire" by John Wigger. Spoiler alert: my next entry in "The Preachers" series is on the long, tumultous ministry of Jim Bakker. While reading about some of the PTL's guests from the late 1970s, I came across a passage about Eldridge Cleaver, former Black Panther. While I knew he had made a huge swing to the Political Right in the 1980s, I wasn't aware that had come about years after a jailhouse Born Again Christian conversion in the 1970s, including hobnobbing with various Evangelical notables of the day.

To fully appreciate the magnamity of Cleaver's 180, let's briefly go back to the...

Note: This post originally appeared on my old blog, Far Above Rubies, on July 31, 2012. ~Li

After posting this last week, I felt conflicted. Well, maybe more than just conflicted. I think it's safe to say I felt scared. My number of hits for the piece were actually better than most of my stuff lately, so people were checking it out. But... aside from April and Don, no one made any comments. On the FAR Facebook page, it didn't get a single "Like". Sure, a number of my posts don't get feedback. That's why in that little "About Me" bar to the right, I "HINT, HINT, HINT" that comments are welcome. I felt this was different, though. It wasn't so much disinterest (especially with the higher amount of views) as sheer dislike. Had I...

(Image Source)

The Summer of 1967 was something. Newark had riots. So did Detroit (there's currently a major motion picture about part of that out in theatres right now).

Yet... away from the heat and burning in the Northeast and Midwest, out in San Francisco, things were much cooler... things were groovy.

From The Week:

How did the Summer of Love begin?

Note: This post first appeared on my old blog, Far Above Rubies, on July 30, 2012. ~Li

A long, long time ago, back when Clinton was still president, Diddy was still Puff Daddy, and Victoria Beckham was most famous for being oh so posh, I studied Machiavelli, St. Augustine and Plato in my senior year of high school.

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Last week, I started thinking about Plato's Allegory of the Cave which is from "The Republic". If you're unfamiliar with the story, here's an excerpt from SparksNotes (you should the full thing out check it out, though... if 16 year old me could get it, so can you!):

Socrates describes a dark scene. A group of people have lived in a deep cave since birth, never seeing the light of day. These people are...

So Z and I made this...