In some ancient cultures, the birth of a child was grieved.
It seems counter-intuitive to grieve life, but they believed the soul of the newborn child was wrenched from the spirit plane where truth and timelessness prevailed and forced into an existence of limitations and grief.
Maybe it’s true and maybe it’s not. But children are a precious asset to this world. Continue reading
Author Jack Cashill recently wrote an article entitled “Why Your Sons Refuse to Read”. It is a must-read for every parent with a son who has not learned to read or who has not learned to read well enough to succeed at his grade/age level. I hope to help parents understand what must be done in order for their sons (and daughters) learn to read well, to enjoy reading, and to begin catching up with all of the concepts and vocabulary that they missed during the years of not reading. Continue reading
Today’s high school students may yawn when they hear teachers describe what a world-changing document the United States Constitution was when it was ratified in 1788 and a new government was formed a year later in 1789.
But a deeper look behind the scenes reveals the three dramatic innovations the Founding Fathers introduced in just 4,400 words that changed the course of history for the better over the next 228 years, not just in the United States of America, but around the word: Continue reading
It’s ironic at a time when 56 million children in the U.S. are being homeschooled as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic that Harvard Magazine would publish an article calling for a ban on homeschooling.
The article by Erin O’Donnell, headlined The Risks of Homeschooling, sets up one straw man after another to make the case that the government must step in to protect children from their own parents – who are presumed guilty and ill-qualified to care for their own children. Continue reading
Editor’s NOTE: Consider that what you are about to read is a superb historical lesson on the subject of the title, but that it was written nearly eight and a half years ago. Look how far we have come with the arrogance of Governors and mayors all across America. What lies ahead for We the People and our children and grandchildren. What lies ahead for the future and the survival of the united States? … and yet ~ what if…. ~ Ed.
With all fifty states offering petitions to the central government to leave the Union, the legality of secession is now front page news in the United States. Can a state legally secede from the Union? Many, including Supreme Court justice Antonin Scalia, suggest no. In a 2006 letter, available here, Scalia argued that a the question was not in the realm of legal possibility because 1) the United States would not be party to a lawsuit on the issue 2) the “constitutional” basis of secession had been “resolved by the Civil War,” and 3) there is no right to secede, as the Pledge of Allegiance clearly illustrates through the line “one nation, indivisible.” Continue reading
Results from the latest international exam show U.S. high school students have made “no significant improvement” since the early 2000s and continue to trail students in Asian countries, despite billions of dollars invested in educational reform.
The exam, known as the Program for International Student Assessment, consists of testing exercises in math, reading, and science and is taken by 15-year-old students across the globe every three years. It seeks to measure how students apply knowledge to real-life scenarios and is considered to be a barometer of future economic success.
A report on the results, which were announced Tuesday, stated: Continue reading
One of the more significant social and political consequences of the coronavirus pandemic is the fact that countless American parents of public school-enrolled children suddenly find themselves faced with the daunting prospect of having to homeschool those kids for an indefinite period of time. When normalcy returns, most of those families, who for various reasons are unable or unwilling to continue homeschooling, will simply fall back into their old groove and schooling will resume as before. But many parents may find themselves enlightened and excited about homeschooling’s benefits and how it actually operates, as opposed to common misconceptions, which are usually pejorative. This is a possibility that the secular leftist elites in education will not tolerate. Continue reading
Critics blast back: ‘Parents have a fundamental constitutional right to raise and educate their children‘
Michigan Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s order closing public school buildings also bans homeschooling, which is unconstitutional, contends a legal non-profit in the state.
“The Great Lakes Justice Center calls upon Gov. Whitmer to correct this unconstitutional action and assure parents in Michigan that they may continue to safely home school their own children while the EO is in effect,” the organization said in a statement Thursday.
The April 2 order states “in-person instruction for pupils in kindergarten through grade 12 … is suspended for the remainder of the 2019-2020 school year.” Continue reading
In the fall of 2018, the trustees of Washington and Lee University voted to paper over parts of the university’s history…
On the recommendations of Washington and Lee’s “Commission on Institutional History and Community,” the board voted to close off the Recumbent Statue of Robert E. Lee in the university chapel that bears his name and to remove the name of John Robinson from an important campus building. Continue reading
If the PC police were an actual business, they’d be pulling down millions like Bernie Madoff.
The radical Left has infected public education like we’ve never seen before, and because of it, students in Tennessee are now being taught that ‘Allah is the only God.’
I wish I could say “Bazinga!” right about now. Continue reading
While certainly not one of the best-known presidents, John Tyler holds several incredible distinctions. He inherited the Presidency after being elected Vice-President under William Henry Harrison, who famously died only 32 days after taking office. Tyler’s presidency was full of the turmoil that would split the Union decades later, and while an ardent States’ Rights supporter, he did show a willingness to compromise. Continue reading
150 years after Robert E. Lee surrendered at Appomattox, Americans are still fighting over the great issues at the heart of the conflict.
April 2015 ~ On this 150th anniversary of the surrender at Appomattox, Americans mark the end of the Civil War. The questions at the heart of the war, though, still occupy the nation, which has never truly gotten over that conflict. The great issues of the war were not resolved on that April morning at Appomattox. In this sense, not only is the Civil War not over; it can still be lost. Continue reading
Revolutionary militia fire on the British
That right is not created by the Second Amendment but is recognized to naturally exist independent of the Constitution. The purpose of the Second Amendment is to make clear that the federal government lacks any authority to restrict or infringe that individual right.
The right is not just the right of the individual to own arms that are suitable for hunting, self defense, recreational shooting or collecting – although each of those are within its scope. The Second Amendment, much like the First Amendment, also exists to protect a political right and the political power that was essential to founding of this nation and as indicated in the Declaration of Independence. Continue reading
This essay was originally published in Southern Partisan Magazine, 1989.
As we conclude bicentennial celebration of the drafting and adoption of the Constitution of the United States, it may be hoped that we have finally arrived at the proper moment for looking back and appreciating the importance of those even more heated discussions of the document which occurred in the nation’s capital during what Henry Adams called the “great secession winter” of 1860-1861. Continue reading
~ Foreword ~
The following is posted in tribute to the wisdom of Neal Ross, Michael Gaddy and Al Benson Jr.. They have seen and written about what many have refused to recognize. ~ Ed.
That “goddamnedpieceofpaper”- again
What the Antifederalists predicted would be the results of the Constitution turned out to be true in most every respect.
Most school kids are left with the impression that the US Constitution was the inevitable follow-up to the Declaration of Independence and the war with King George. What they miss out on is the exciting debate that took place after the war and before the Constitution, a debate that concerned the dangers of creating a federal government at all. Continue reading
The public school system my daughter is in was once one of the highest rated in Ohio. I went through this school system myself and have seen the drastic change. Here’s some background on what’s occurring that has our right-leaning community in an uproar, and even some middle-road lefties. The Director of Education – a “male college cheerleader” in his youth (seriously lol), changed the curriculum to meet common-core-type metrics about 6-7 years ago. Purchasing of new books, Chrome Books, equipment, etc. were made. The curriculum change eventually disconnected us from the apples-to-apples metrics the state and other education quality rating organizations use to gauge schools. Slowly each year our school system began rating lower, and lower by state standards… Continue reading
Dumbing Us Down by John Gatto is a book that gives you the red pill on modern education and how it is tragically failing those who have to endure it. Since I am a product of the public schools in a predominately Democratic state (Maryland), and received a steroidal dose of liberal brainwashing in university, it’s a small miracle that I was able to fully digest the red pill since the whole point of those who educated me was to keep me ignorant.
School is a twelve-year jail sentence where bad habits are the only curriculum truly learned. I teach school and win awards doing it. I should know.
This book is nothing new to those of you who are already aware of the problems in education, but there are a few key segments that I want to share as Gatto offers his perspective from working as a public school teacher. Continue reading
William Techumseh Sherman, young officer
I would like to add a little footnote to Tom DiLorenzo’s recent treatment of General William Tecumseh Sherman and the Indians. This “footnote” is actually a “prequel” to Sherman’s famous “march” through Georgia and South Carolina, during the late Unpleasantness, and his later Indian-fighting activities after that not very “civil” war. It is my duty as a patriotic Floridian to describe this part of the Sherman saga and, anyway, it helps us better understand his attitude toward warfare.
I refer of course to Sherman’s unhappy days in the subtropics, 1840–1841. Of course putting those days — which added up to just under a year and a half — in context requires me to say a few things about the Second Seminole War (1835–1842). Now, as far back as the American Revolution, American leaders coveted Florida — then under British rule. This was for obvious reasons of political geography. Alas, it was not to be, and the Treaty of Paris (1783), which concluded the Revolutionary War, saw Florida handed back to Spain, after twenty years of British rule. Continue reading
Heston and his wife Lydia
Earlier, I watched “The Ten Commandments” on television. That was always an Easter tradition in my family. I was remembering stories I’ve heard about Charlton Heston and his connection to Asheville. John Charles Carter (1923-2008), as he was born, and his wife Lydia Clarke (1923-2018), were married in Greensboro, NC in 1944. (I suspect she was a student at either Women’s College or Greensboro College, but I don’t know that for a fact.) After his service in the Army Air Corps (Air Force) during WW II, they were living in New York, attempting to find work as professional actors. In January, 1947, they were hired to manage the newly founded Asheville Community Theatre here in Asheville. Continue reading