Up In Smoke. It’s been said that museums are “worldview warehouses.”  Museums contain what a culture believes about itself and the world. That’s why the burning of Brazil’s National Museum is such a tragedy. The 200-year-old museum sustained catastrophic damage, in part because two hydrants close to the museum didn’t function, and firefighters had to bring water from a nearby lake. Firefighters and others saved some of the artifacts, but it will likely be months before authorities are able to provide a full accounting of what was saved and lost. The museum contained one-of-a-kind pieces from ancient Egypt, Greece, and Rome. It also served as the world’s most significant repository of Brazilian artifacts.

Evangelicals at the White House. The liberal group Americans United for Separation of Church and State wants President Trump to stop meeting with evangelicals. The group says the president’s evangelical advisors violate the Federal Advisory Committee Act of 1972. The law provides “transparency and procedural standards for committees created to meet with the executive branch,” according to Religion News Service. Americans United says the group should not meet “unless and until” it complies with the law. “It is clear that the President’s Evangelical Advisory Board is doing substantive work with the Trump Administration behind closed doors — without any sunlight for the public to understand how and why decisions are being made,” wrote Americans United Associate Legal Director Alex J. Luchenitser in a letter addressed to White House counsel Don McGahn and other administration officials. The letter was apparently motivated by a dinner at the White House with about 100 evangelical advisors on Aug. 27.

Marijuana and Mothers. More women are smoking marijuana during pregnancy and it’s likely that breastfeeding women who smoke pot are passing along the high to their babies. A study by the journal Pediatrics found that more than half of nursing mothers who smoke pot had THC in their breast milk. THC is the ingredient that makes a user high. A separate study, published in 2017 by the Journal of the American Medical Association, says that marijuana use among pregnant women nearly doubled between 2009 and 2016.

HBO Cleans Up…Sort Of. The cable network HBO has eliminated sexually explicit late-night programming such as “Taxicab Confessions” and “Real Sex” from its late night programming, according to the Los Angeles Times. That’s the good news. The bad news is that there’s still plenty of sexually explicit fare on HBO in such dramas as “The Deuce” and “Game of Thrones.” The other bad news is that HBO did not drop the sexually explicit content because of a newfound sense of moral outrage. They dropped it because viewership for such content has dropped given its cost (free) and accessibility (any time) on the Internet.

Milestones. The mighty Roman Empire fell on this day in 476 when Romulus Augustulus, last emperor of the Western Roman Empire, was deposed. The Roman Empire lasted for more than 500 years…. George Eastman registers the trademark Kodak and receives a patent for the first camera that uses roll film. The Eastman Kodak company shaped many critical (and worldview-shaping) industries in the 20^th century, including photography, film, and digital imaging…. Dallas Willard was born on this date in 1935. His books included the best-selling (and influential) The Divine Conspiracy.

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