The Bonfire Lesson

The fire had burned down to a bed of glowing coals that night, the way fires do when the wood has settled into embers and the heat rises steady and quiet. My grandkids sat around me in a loose circle, wrapped in blankets, their faces flickering with amber light, their eyes wide the way young eyes get when they sense that the old man is about to say something he’s never said before. The cicadas hummed in the trees, and the air smelled of maple and river birch smoke, and for a moment I felt the years folding in on themselves – all the decades I’ve lived in Murfreesboro, all the changes I’ve watched come and go, all the things I’ve held in my chest because no one seemed to want to hear them.

Nights like this don’t come often anymore – nights when the world slows down long enough for an old man to speak and for children to listen… Continue reading →

              Continental Currency, One Sixth of a Dollar

Due to wartime inflation of bills of credit (“Continentals”) during the American war for independence and the predictable economic effects, an old American colloquialism developed, “not worth a Continental” (although this phrase may have come about much later than the Revolutionary era). This article argues that Continentals only temporarily retained some value largely because of an initial promise of future redemption in gold and silver – a monetary “bait-and-switch.” (Additionally, interventions such as legal tender laws and the acceptance of paper money for tax payments may have offered some temporary support, but these measures were secondary to – and ultimately dependent upon – the original expectation of redemption in gold or silver).

This poses a significant problem for Modern Monetary Theory (MMT). Rather than demonstrating chartalism or a state’s ability to impose money on a people via a combination of legal tender laws and acceptance of their tokens in tax settlement, it demonstrates that the Continentals were only perceived as valuable because they were linked to gold and silver and carried explicit promises of future redemption in specie and were burned to avoid other problems. Continue reading →

Sometimes kids don’t need a timeout — they need a reset. That’s not the same thing. A true reset helps kids come back to themselves. It gives them access to their own energy again, instead of just pulling away from overstimulation. But what actually works? Not all “self-care” is equal. For children, especially, the best kind involves real movement, tactile stimulation, and a sense of control. When structured right, these small acts can help your child regroup emotionally, physically, and mentally — in ways they don’t have to explain or intellectualize.

Reset Starts with Letting Go, Not Adding More 

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Ben Franklin warned us about how corruption brings tyranny, but I remain hopeful that Abe Lincoln’s Better Angels will arrive in time to save the Union once again

In 1783 at the end of George Washington’s tenure as Commander and Chief of the Continental Army, he penned a letter to the governors of each of the States. It was 7 years after the Declaration of Independence and the thirteen former colonies remained organized under the Articles of Confederation, the nation’s first frame of government. Washington’s letter gives every indication he was looking forward to retirement at his Mt. Vernon home with no thought of further service as the first American President.

As I read this letter I was struck by the prescient thoughts it offered. One section highlighted below speaks to the importance of recognizing limited federal governance as defined by representative legislation and thus informing the world that the new nation of individual States was united. These thoughts would be fully expressed later in the Constitution of the United States. Continue reading →

Get your children OUT of the System – NOW – and keep them OUT!

Two more states recently enacted universal school choice laws, which means parents there no longer are limited to sending their children to schools within their district.

In mid-February, Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee signed into law a universal private school voucher bill. Now, in subsequent weeks, both Idaho and Wyoming have adopted universal school choice, becoming the 14th and 15th states (respectively) to do so. Continue reading →