On Wednesday, May 18, 1864, President Abraham Lincoln issued an Executive Order, commanding General John A. Dix to arrest and imprison the editors, proprietors, and publishers of the New York World and New York Journal of Commerce newspapers for publishing a “false and spurious proclamation purporting to be signed by the President.”
This was part of an incident known as the “Gold Hoax of 1864.” Or, as this video from Life on the Civil War Research Trail calls it, “Fake News.” Continue reading
One of the few surviving Tuskegee Airmen – and one of the four original Top Guns – turned 100 on Independence Day surrounded by friends, family, and television cameras for the big event.
Retired Air Force Lt. Col. Harry T. Stewart Jr. celebrated his centennial milestone on Thursday with a party that the Detroit chapter of the Tuskegee Airmen and the Tuskegee National Historical Museum hosted. Continue reading
A new nation: In John Trumbull’s Declaration of Independence, Samuel Adams is seated to the viewer’s right of Richard Henry Lee, whose legs are crossed in the front row. They became friends and political allies. (John Trumbull/Capitol Rotunda)
Have you ever wondered what happened to the 56 men who signed the Declaration of Independence?
Five signers were captured by the British as traitors, and tortured before they died. Twelve had their homes ransacked and burned. Two lost their sons in the revolutionary army, another had two sons captured. Nine of the 56 fought and died from wounds or hardships of the revolutionary war.
They signed and they pledged their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor. Continue reading
The names of 56 men ended up on the Declaration of Independence in the form of their signatures.
The name of one woman appeared on it, too, well – a version of it.
According to the National Park Service (NPS), that woman was Mary Katharine Goddard. Continue reading
Eighty-two percent of teachers say that the general state of public K-12 education has gotten worse over the past five years. This is according to a new Pew Research Center survey conducted in October and November of 2023. That’s not the only shocking statistic from the survey, either, which overall offers a grim statistical map of the fault lines fracturing our education system. However, these trends may offer some insight into how to fix our schools.
First, the teachers. Most teachers (77 percent) find their job frequently stressful, and a large majority (70 percent) say their school is understaffed, which may contribute to the fact that over 80 percent of teachers say they do not have enough time in the work day to complete all necessary tasks. Continue reading
Donya Grant, works on a homeschool lesson with her son Kemper, 14, as her daughter Rowyn, 11, works at right, at their home in Monroe, Wash./AP Photo
Scientific American magazine urged the federal government to regulate homeschooling and suggested that parents of homeschooled children should “undergo a background check.” Continue reading
Some of us may remember the Helen Lovejoy character in The Simpsons, who would appear any time some catastrophe befell the town and plaintively wail, “Won’t someone please think of the children?!” The joke here, of course, is that as long as you do something in the name of helping children, it must be right, and you must be virtuous.
Such sentiments are easily ridiculed in cartoons, but unfortunately, they take root in reality like Russian knapweed despite copious evidence undermining their veracity. Consider your own government-school experiences, whether as a student, parent, or interested observer: Continue reading
February 19, 2002 ~ I’ll bet you think that the problems with our nation’s schools are a fairly recent phenomenon. Wrong. It dates backs to the 1960’s. Those that have implemented the subversion of our educational system have sought to fly well below the radar of public awareness, depending on stealth and duplicity to achieve the wreckage that has already stunted the lives of thousands who have passed through it.
No other topic has evoked as much email as did our weekly “Warning Signs” commentary, Indoctrination, Not Education. Good. Time to wake up America!
In this and three other commentaries, I will walk you through the history of the problem with the help of an extraordinary book, “The Deliberate Dumbing Down of America” by Charlotte Thomson Iserbyt. The facts I will share with you are found in a fat compendium of research by this former senior official with the US Department of Education who discovered the mother lode, copied it, and fled. She is one of America’s unsung heroes. Continue reading
Millions of Americans have woken up to the fact that their education system is rotten to the core. As elite universities are engulfed by antisemitic riots, their veil of prestige has been torn to shreds. It is by now clear to many that, in the words of Christopher Rufo, the radical left has conquered everything.
What, then, is to be done? Many, Rufo included, are doing their best to stem the tide of revolutionary ideology through direct political engagement. Their hard work is paying off. In recent months, universities are beginning to move away from mandatory diversity statements. This is just the beginning…
Continue reading
The other day I ran across a passage from That Hideous Strength which seems oddly applicable to our time. A dystopian novel written by C. S. Lewis at the close of World War II, That Hideous Strength finds one of its main characters, Mark Studdock, working for N.I.C.E., an organization which pulls the strings in a controlling, totalitarian society.
Studdock is assigned to write propaganda articles for N.I.C.E., an assignment which he objects to when he receives it from his boss, Miss Hardcastle. Studdock argues that it won’t work because newspapers “are read by educated people” – too smart to be taken in by propaganda. Continue reading
Serving in the military is a family tradition for William Pool.
The 99-year-old veteran fought at the Battle of the Bulge in 1944, while his father fought for the Union Army during the Civil War in the 1860s.
Yes, that’s not a typo. Pool is the only living son of a Civil War soldier, according to KYTV, an NBC affiliate in Springfield, Missouri.
In honor of Flag Day, KYTV did a deep dive on Pool’s unusual family heritage, speaking with Pool, his daughters, Carolyn George and Jeanie Price, and author Tim Pletkovich about it.
Citing Pletkovich’s book, “Civil War Fathers: Sons of the Civil War in WWII,” which includes a chapter on the Pool family, KYTV explained how Pool’s father, Charles Pool, fought for the Union with the Sixth West Virginia Volunteers during the Civil War and received a pension for his service. Continue reading
Back in the early 19th century, when the United States started its westward expansion, one remarkable woman emerged as an essential figure in American history: Sacagawea. Born around 1788 in what is now Idaho, Sacagawea was a Shoshone woman whose knowledge, skills, and resilience were instrumental in the success of the Lewis and Clark Expedition. Even though many of us have heard of her, not too many people know how important her role truly was. So, let’s learn a bit more about this extraordinarily brave and intelligent woman who helped shape the course of American history. Continue reading
These days, it’s almost common knowledge that homeschooled students have a better academic education, do better in college and careers, and are regarded as “smarter” than students from public schools. Homeschooling families typically gravitate toward this educational lifestyle to avoid the public school environment, to prioritize their faith and family values, to adjust to a more flexible and forgiving lifestyle, and to offer their children a better childhood than that found in public schools. Yes to all! These are wonderful reasons to choose homeschooling and should be widely shared and celebrated. Continue reading
For these past many years, this author and publisher have tackled many issues, which are of paramount concern to all freedom loving Americans; gun control (the 2nd Amendment), the illegal invasion of this nation (immigration), spirituality (not religion or ‘churchianity, Health Care, the intrusion on our privacy and rights (NSA and complete violation of ALL of the original Bill of Rights) – and so many more issues, which we are not prepared to devote a column to at this time, BUT…
What we are going to devote the Metropolis Café to – is the sorry state of what was once our greatness – the ‘education’ system in America, yesterday, today and tomorrow. Continue reading
While compiling a list of individual, public-school districts in Minnesota the other day, I noticed something curious. My list consisted of around 330 districts … but the district numbers weren’t all consecutive.
The list started with Aitkin (District Number 1*), proceeded to Hill City (District Number 2), jumped to McGregor (District Number 4), and then to Anoka-Hennepin (District Number 11). The numbers continued jumping, eventually reaching Ada-Borup-West (District Number 2910).
“There must have been around 3,000 districts in Minnesota at one time,” I concluded, thinking that going from 3,000 to just over 300 was quite the reduction! Continue reading
This is how one scholar has diagnosed Jean-Jacques Rousseau. Harsh though this may sound, the details of Rousseau’s life (1712–1778) bear out this description. Continue reading
Angela Davis is a 79-year-old author and symbol of the Black Power movement. As a political activist and truth seeker, Davis appeared on February 21, 2023, episode of “Finding Your Roots” to uncover the mysteries of her family’s past. Hosted by Henry Louis Gates Jr., the show presented Davis with some answers to questions she’d had for decades. The first question posed to Gates’ team was to find the identity of Davis’ maternal grandparents, whom her mother, Sallye Bell, never knew.
Though they were unable to learn her grandmother’s name, the team was able to trace her father’s identity: John Austin Darden, a white Alabama lawyer. When Davis saw a photo of Darden, she noted the family resemblance, “He has my mother’s lips. It’s so funny, I can see her in him”. The team also learned that Darden had four sons and two daughters, leaving the possibility that her mother had other Black half-siblings. Continue reading
Since 2020, the number of families participating in homeschooling has increased significantly, and with it, discussions about regulations. Currently, regulations of homeschoolers are a state-by-state phenomenon, with Pennsylvania and New York among the states with the most regulations and Missouri, Texas, and Oklahoma with the least. Examples of regulations include requiring parents to submit a letter of intent to homeschool prior to removing their children from the classroom, having teaching qualifications, teaching specific subjects, having evidence of vaccinations, schooling each child for a certain number of hours, and more.
One of the many reasons for the push for regulations has to do with the desire to protect children from isolation, educational neglect, and other more-violent forms of abuse. Continue reading
Some of us may remember the Helen Lovejoy character in The Simpsons, who would appear any time some catastrophe befell the town and plaintively wail, “Won’t someone please think of the children?!”
The joke here, of course, is that as long as you do something in the name of helping children, it must be right, and you must be virtuous.
Such sentiments are easily ridiculed in cartoons, but unfortunately, they take root in reality like Russian knapweed despite copious evidence undermining their veracity. Consider your own government-school experiences, whether as a student, parent, or interested observer… Continue reading