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The Day after Valentine’s Day

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  The day after Valentine’s Day is its own kind of holiday — quieter, unadorned, and strangely revealing. It’s the emotional hangover after the glitter has settled. The flowers are still on the table, but they’ve already begun their slow wilt. The chocolates have been picked over. The cards sit open on the counter, their sweetness suddenly louder in the stillness. The day after joy always has a different temperature. It’s not just Valentine’s Day. It’s the day after a long‑awaited trip, the day after a family gathering that briefly made the world feel whole, the day after a celebration where you let yourself forget the hard parts of life. When the music stops, the silence can feel like a drop in altitude. You land back in your real life with a soft thud. There’s something sobering about that return. Sometimes even depressing. Because joy — real joy — lifts us. It suspends the weight we carry. It lets us forget the logistics, the griefs, the responsibilities, the chronic worri...
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The Significance of Parity: When Christianity and Islam Stand Equal in Number

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  For most of recorded history, Christianity has been the world’s largest religious tradition. Islam has been the second. That hierarchy has shaped geopolitics, culture, identity, and even the emotional vocabulary of the modern world. But according to long‑range demographic projections from the Pew Research Center, that era is ending. By 2050, if current trends continue, Muslims will nearly equal Christians in number worldwide . This is not a story about conversion waves or ideological triumph. It’s a story about fertility rates, age structures, and geography — the quiet engines of demographic change. Muslim-majority populations are, on average, younger and have more children. Christian populations, especially in Europe and North America, are older and shrinking. Meanwhile, Christianity’s center of gravity is shifting southward, with sub‑Saharan Africa becoming home to a rapidly growing share of the world’s Christians. Islam, too, is expanding in Africa and maintaining strong grow...
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Top 10 Blog Posts from 2025. #10 - Review of A View through the Fog (McGee)

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  Bob McGee's book,  A View through the Fog , has received a number of excellent reviews of Goodreads -- all outstanding ones. We will be sharing these over the next few weeks. If you want to get them all at once, here you go:  A View through the Fog by Bob McGee | Goodreads . "This is a great collection of stories about Bob's unique experiences with the Bridge and his co-workers. His chapters on suicides and near-suicides touch the heart. He has a marvelous connection with the Bridge, and his writings make the reader love it as he has." Lorri Ungaretti Historian, Author, and Copy Editor for the  Argonaut , Journal of San Francisco Historical Society Book description: A View through the Fog  is compelling, poignant, and packed with both moving and hilarious anecdotes. All human life (and death) is here. With his own distinct voice, McGee opens the door on the dizzying world of the Golden Gate Bridge-the beauty of both nature and the bridge itself, the camaraderi...
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