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Edward Ordman - Published Essays

(These are pointers to  "writer" type publications, e.g. essays in the                            (partially updated 10/21/2019)
Christian Science Monitor, as opposed to older math and CS publications.
The titles here are sometimes my original titles, sometimes the ones the Monitor provided.)
BELOW are items from other publications

In the Christian Science Monitor:         (click on the title to view the article)

Note - these stories are on the Monitor Archive website, and I encourage people to go them there so that the Monitor knows they are being read.
Since in 2018 the Monitor put up a paywall (you can still read a limited number for free), I'm going to provide a second link, to a local copy
(the online copy may have pictures, relevant links, etc., that are not on the local copy). This is a change "in progress".

  Letter to the editor, by Eunice Ordman, October 30, 2006

  1  January 22, 2002    A Vietnamese New Year in Memphis         Local copy 
  2  Dec 26, 2002         Gamal Abdel Nasser to the Rescue             Local Copy
  3  January 2, 2003      A Communist Under Every Bed                Local copy
  4  January 22, 2003    The integration of the Boyds PTA              Local Copy
  5  February 3, 2003    Mom's Prayer Meetings (about PTA and integration)  Local Copy
  6  February 12, 2003   How a famous musician learned a new tune (Keter Betts) Local Copy
  7  February 21, 2003  George Washington ist gestorben (is dead)         Local Copy
  8  February 27, 2003  Arrested by the Turkish Police, with Tefillin      Local Copy
  9  March 14, 2003      A Catholic Dispensation for Purim                     Local Copy
 10  March 24, 2003      Our Game Went Awry with the FBI   (Camp David)   Local Copy
 11  April 10, 2003         Why I learned to speak Chinese (a little bit)    Local Copy
 12  April 23, 2003         A beard that a mother could love, at last          Local Copy
 13  May 1, 2003          Funny Hats topped my teaching career              Local Copy
 14  May 5, 2003          On Making Muslim Outsiders, Insiders              Local Copy    
 15  May 14, 2003         Navy cowboys, pilot-whale priests,  and other odd jobs    Local Copy  
 16  May 22, 2002         A blue-capped barbarian untangles a speech problem       Local Copy
 17  June 26, 2003         Truth not yet, and Truth gone by                                        Local Copy 
 18  July 14, 2003          The wisdom of the ages travels well, too                            Local Copy
 19  July 28, 2003         On knowing someone who knows someone (Conspiracies)  Local Copy
 20  August 18, 2003      My family's old habits and the new Boy Scout                   Local Copy
 21  August 28, 2003      Campfires and other things that kids notice much later       Local Copy
 22  Sepember 22, 2003  Similar attitudes at higher altitudes                                     Local Copy            
 23  October 9, 2003      The time my Jewish mother influenced the Pope.               Local Copy 
 24  October 15, 2003    How tenure denial helped my career                                  Local Copy   
 25  October 31, 2003    My father succeeded by the process of elimination           Local Copy
 26  November 7, 2003   Speaking of Louisville....                                                  Local Copy  
 27  December 29, 2003  Untraditional, but an heirloom nevertheless                     Local Copy
 28  February 5, 2004      There’s always a first time                                                Local Copy
 29  February 25, 2004    A town by any other name would be less confusing         Local Copy
 30  April 30, 2004          There is profit in being a foreign prophet                         Local Copy
 31  May 17, 2004           Merci. Oncle Picsou (Thanks, Uncle Scrooge)                  Local Copy
 32  August 6, 2004         When skunks and bears go to town                                   Local Copy
 33  August 26, 2004       Sometimes childish logic makes sense
 34  September 20, 2004  The Adventures of my Mother, The Music Woman      
 35  November 14, 2005  Getting lost can be fun  (in the the subway in Kiev )        Local Copy
 36  April 29, 2015         How I discovered what’s in a name     (one pleasure of being an author)   Local copy
 37  July 1, 2015               Making myself understood       (needing foreign languages)   
           (I'm usually very happy with how the Monitor edits my essays.   But they put a nice cartoon with this one and as a result
               edited out the names of some friends. So the unedited version is at  A Language I never expected to need  )    
 38   October 21, 2015      Hello, Operator, I have a Question      (Experiences with telephones, and telephone operators)
 39   December 2, 2015      The Road from Damascus     (Experiences with immigrants)
40   April 13, 2016,  Of comic books and Canaletto     About paintings in the Polish Royal Palace Local Copy
41   August 3, 2016   Memorable Fish I've been given     Why I once needed to mail some fish from Memphis to Nairobi
42   April 12, 2017    In new situations, I sing an old song    Would you believe, an essay for ANZAC Day?
43  December 6, 2017  Ill-defined Boundaries that are Set in Stone.
44   March 13, 2019.  Heavenly Help for the Working Dog


In the  Hebrew Watchman, a weekly newspaper in Memphis, TN

For two published stories and one unpublished story about our 2005 visit to Cambodia and Thailand, click here.
Relative to our 2007 trip to Israel and the West Bank,
...    June 7, 2007   Letter: Reader supports Israel, not Israeli government policies

In summer 2008 an essay (written with my wife Eunice) on teaching about Islam in  synagogues appeared in
Torah at the Center, a publication of the Religious Action Center of the Union for Reform Judaism.
They seem to have taken that issue off line, so
I have placed a copy of the entire issue ONLINE HERE, our essay is at page 19.

In Memphis Parent Magazine, a monthly in Memphis, TN

August, 2009,  The New Grandparent

In The Commercial Appeal, the daily newspaper in Memphis, TN

0. Assorted letters to the editor, various dates.
1. April 2012,  Helping others was Stan's life mission (Stanley Engelberg)
2. May 26, 2012, Journey of Belief Came Full Circle for Filipina

Essays on the website of The Institute on Religion in an Age of Science, with an index at http://www.iras.org/essayscommentary.html  (link checked June 2018)
1.  October 2011     What is sacred?
2.  June 2012           Religion as Community
3.  November 2012  Religion and Politics