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Shareable Snack: A Firsthand Account of the Civil War and Its Causes64
- Video
- October 3, 2024
Julius Franklin Howell joined the Confederate Army when he was 16. After surviving a few battles, Howell eventually found himself in a Union prison camp at Point Lookout, Maryland. In 1947, at the age of 101, Howell made a rare recording at the Library of Congress, in which he described his enlistment, sudden capture, and
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The Right to Speak Evil0
- Culture
- October 3, 2024
Words can harm. The childhood saying “Sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me” is obviously untrue. Words bring ruin and despair, drive people to suicide, and foment massacres and war. They are used to justify the enslavement of nations, and the genocide of entire ethnic groups. This is exactly
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Purposeless Masculinity in Beryl Bainbridge’s ‘The Birthday Boys’1
- Featured, History, Literature
- October 2, 2024
In the face of certain death, does being civilized matter? All the narrators of Beryl Bainbridge’s 1991 historical novel The Birthday Boys die. And still, knowing their deaths loom, they carry on with birthdays, religious practices, and virtues like loyalty and courage. Heavily based on real life diaries and letters, this novel is a hybrid
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Half of All Murders Now Go Unsolved1
In 1962, 93 percent of all murders in America were solved. In 2020, more than 50 percent of murders went unsolved. What happened? Why is it so easy to get away with murder in the United States? As with many terrible trends, the “Great Decline” in the murder clearance rate started in the mid-1960s. By
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What Can the Men From ‘The Lord of The Rings’ Books Teach Us Today?9
- Culture, Entertainment, Featured, Literature
- October 1, 2024
In sorrow, we must go, but not in despair. Behold! We are not bound for ever to the circles of the world, and beyond them is more than memory. Near the close of The Return of the King, Aragorn proclaims these words of farewell, seeking to comfort his friends as they depart to their homes
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Restrictive Schooling Imperils Our Children1
Last week, my sons’ school went into lockdown. It wasn’t a drill. There was a real threat. Two high school-aged students, a boy and a girl, were discussing an alleged fight on social media when one of them wrote, “I’m shooting up the school at 9.” Thankfully, someone reported this information to the school, and the
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Fake Government Statistics1
The Bureau of Labor Statistics recently admitted that 818,000 fewer jobs were added from March 2023 to March 2024 than previously reported. That’s no small number, and it’s an indication of how significant the issues with government statistics are. Unfortunately, this isn’t the only time that government agencies have misrepresented vital economic statistics. Though jobs
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A Delicate Balance: What to Make of the Link Between Falling Bat Populations and Rising Infant Mortality4
A fascinating study recently published in Science found that human lives may depend on the fate of bats. Not directly, of course. Rather, it’s the bat’s unique role in the ecosystems they inhabit that’s important for us. As a result, the decline of bat populations endangers human populations in an unexpected manner. The link between
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A Parenting Reality Check0
Once again, readers, I. MUST. RANT. Why? I … just heard from a mom trying to get two other families to let their kids play with her kids in her yard for an hour a week. Unsupervised. AN HOUR A WEEK. She lives on a quiet street in quiet suburb in a quiet state. Classic
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