HippieChick58's Profile

Politics

May 4, 2022May 2022

Posted by HippieChick58

LINKForeign Policy Expert Who Testified Against Donald Trump In First Impeachment Trial Said She Realized Very Early On He Would Try To Steal The Election Well Before January 6th: "This Was Trump Pulling A Putin"

By Andrea Thompson The recent bombshell CNN exposure of Donald Trump Jr.’s damning text messages to his father’s Chief of Staff Mark Meadows — sent just days after the November 2020 election, before the race had even been called, in which the then-president’s son was already floating ideas and suggestions for overthrowing the election his father was about to lose — was bad enough for the already scandal-ridden former president. In fact, one former federal prosecutor has already ...

5 comments

News & Links

May 4, 2022May 2022

Posted by HippieChick58

LINKLetters From An American 05/03/2022

Heather Cox Richardson In 1985, President Ronald Reagan’s team made a conscious effort to bring evangelicals and social conservatives into the voting base of the Republican Party. The Republicans’ tax cuts and deregulation had not created the prosperity party leaders had promised, and they were keenly aware that their policies might well not survive the upcoming 1986 midterm elections. To find new voters, they turned to religious groups that had previously shunned politics. ...

1 comment

Religion & Spirituality

May 3, 2022May 2022

Posted by HippieChick58

LINKI'm a member of The Satanic Temple and got outed at work — Ask a Manager

I’m a member of The Satanic Temple and got outed at work by ALISON GREEN on MAY 3, 2022 A reader writes: I’m a member of The Satanic Temple. That information got out at work and now things are unpleasant and awkward. I became a passionate patients’ rights advocate when a family member almost died after they were denied emergency medical treatment on religious grounds. The unexpected delay in care almost cost my family member their life and it was a frightening time for our ...

9 comments

News & Links

May 3, 2022May 2022

Posted by HippieChick58

LINKLetters From An American 05/02/2022

Heather Cox Richardson Tonight, news broke of a leaked draft of what appears to be Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito’s majority decision overturning Roe v. Wade, the 1973 Supreme Court decision establishing access to abortion as a constitutional right. That news is an alarm like the 1857 Dred Scott v. Sandford decision declaring both that Black Americans had no rights that a white man was bound to respect and that Congress had no power to prohibit human enslavement in the territories....

5 comments

News & Links

May 2, 2022May 2022

Posted by HippieChick58

LINKHow Citibank ended up as the Republicans’ newest corporate target

How Citibank ended up as the Republicans’ newest corporate target Citibank said it would cover the travel expenses for employees who have to leave their home state to seek an abortion. Many Republicans aren't pleased. May 2, 2022, 9:44 AM CDT By Steve Benen Republican efforts to bully corporations into submission have become more common of late, but a rather dramatic example of the phenomenon came to public light a couple of months ago. Citibank, one of the nation’s largest ...

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News & Links

May 1, 2022May 2022

Posted by HippieChick58

LINKReligion and education: Let's be perfectly clear

Despite a long-time understanding among sociologists that certain forms of religious belief and identification undercut educational attainment, contrarian social scientists and religious apologists often argue that education and religion are completely compatible. Recent arguments by Ilana Horwitz and Ryan Burge go further to claim that religion may even enhance educational success. Such arguments wither under basic scrutiny. Reliably offered by cheerleaders of religion, this perspective ...

7 comments

General & Hellos

May 1, 2022May 2022

Posted by HippieChick58

Are you vaxxed?

19 comments

General & Hellos

May 1, 2022May 2022

Posted by HippieChick58

A very long time ago I was an Morse Intercept Operator when I was Active Duty Army. This has some references to the job that I did.

4 comments

News & Links

May 1, 2022May 2022

Posted by HippieChick58

LINKLetters From An American 04/30/2022

Heather Cox Richardson In the spring of 1890, Republicans were convinced they would win the upcoming midterm elections. Thanks to their management of the economy, they insisted, the United States was on its way to becoming the most advanced nation in the world. Technology had brought new products to the country—bananas, for example—and upwardly mobile Americans had enough leisure time and money to celebrate weddings with special dresses and cakes, and to give their children toys on ...

1 comment

News & Links

Apr 30, 2022Apr 2022

Posted by HippieChick58

LINKLetters From An American 04/29/2022

Heather Cox Richardson The “Ghost of Kyiv,” an ace pilot who heartened the Ukrainian resistance by shooting down a number of Russian aircraft on the first day of Russia’s invasion, was real after all. According to The Times of London, he was Major Stepan Tarabalka, 29 years old, and was killed in action on March 13. That extraordinary Ukrainian resistance, reinforced as we now know it was by U.S. intelligence and the unified support of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) ...

2 comments

News & Links

Apr 29, 2022Apr 2022

Posted by HippieChick58

LINKLetters From An American 04/28/2022

Heather Cox Richardson It has been hard for me to see the historical outlines of the present-day attack on American democracy clearly. But this morning, as I was reading a piece in Vox by foreign affairs specialist Zack Beauchamp, describing Florida governor Ron DeSantis’s path in Florida as an attempt to follow in the footsteps of Hungary’s Viktor Orbán, the penny dropped. Here’s what I see: Before Trump won the presidency in 2016, the modern-day Republican Party was well on its...

1 comment

News & Links

Apr 28, 2022Apr 2022

Posted by HippieChick58

LINKLetters From An American 04/27/2022

Heather Cox Richardson Last night, New York Times reporters Alexander Burns and Jonathan Martin released more of the audio recording of Republican leadership that they obtained in the process of writing their forthcoming book. This recording features a conversation among the House leadership on January 10, 2021. In it, the two top Republicans in the House of Representatives—House minority leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) and House minority whip Steve Scalise (R-LA)—agreed that the Trump ...

1 comment

News & Links

Apr 27, 2022Apr 2022

Posted by HippieChick58

LINKElon Musk buys Twitter. What could possibly go wrong?

Overview: The world's richest man, a "free-speech absolutist," buys Twitter. Is this good news for the little guy, for the marginalized, for truth? Everyone has their line. Even 4chan, a supposedly “anything-goes platform” that many think is the worst manifestation of the internet, had a line. It was an animated depiction of child pornography, as well as concerted attacks on female journalists and others associated with Gamergate. The result? 8chan was started as an even more ...

13 comments

News & Links

Apr 27, 2022Apr 2022

Posted by HippieChick58

LINKLetters From An American 04/26/2022

Heather Cox Richardson I intended to write tonight about Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s statement today before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee—and I will—but the research for that topic led me elsewhere: into the world of the early years of the Trump administration, when many journalists were trying oh, so hard to pretend that maybe Trump’s gutting of the State Department, for example, was just some part of a new policy approach. It’s startling when you compare it ...

3 comments

Feline Fanatics

Apr 26, 2022Apr 2022

Posted by HippieChick58

LINKThe complicated truth about a cat’s purr

By Stephen Dowling 25th July 2018 Our cats may purr when we pet and tickle them, but it’s a much more complicated form of communication than we've assumed. We think we know what a cat’s purr means. It is arguably the most recognisable sign of animal contentment: a pleasurable rasp that erupts whenever a cat is tickled or petted, the soundtrack to countless sessions sprawled on an owner’s lap. But that’s not quite the full story. There is a lot more going on with the cat’s ...

1 comment

News & Links

Apr 26, 2022Apr 2022

Posted by HippieChick58

LINKLetters From An American 04/25/2022

Heather Cox Richardson Yesterday, voters in both France and Slovenia rejected far-right candidates for leadership. French voters preferred leaving Emmanuel Macron in place as president by 58.5% over Marine Le Pen (41.5%). Le Pen is supported by fascists and antisemites, and she promised to take France out of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), to turn against the U.S. influence, and to end multiculturalism, which she maintains is a failure. In Slovenia, a small country in ...

2 comments

News & Links

Apr 24, 2022Apr 2022

Posted by HippieChick58

LINKLetters From An American 04/23/2022

Heather Cox Richardson Late last night, the House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the U.S. Capitol filed a motion asking a judge to put an end to the attempts of Trump chief of staff Mark Meadows to stonewall the committee. Meadows has tried to avoid talking to the committee or providing it with documents, using a number of different arguments that essentially try to establish that the U.S. president cannot be held accountable by Congress. The committee’s motion ...

3 comments

News & Links

Apr 23, 2022Apr 2022

Posted by HippieChick58

LINKUniversity of Pittsburgh Proves Exercise Equals Better Memory

University of Pittsburgh Proves Exercise Equals Better Memory By Sarah Barkley Published on April 11, 2022 Most people know that regular physical activity is beneficial to their physical health. However, it offers more benefits than you might realize because it promotes better memory and cognition. Regular physical activity improves cognitive health, helping you think clearly, learn, problem-solve, and find emotional balance. You’ll quickly find that it promotes better memory, making...

4 comments

Health & Happiness

Apr 23, 2022Apr 2022

Posted by HippieChick58

LINKA bad death: the importance of truth-telling at end-of-life

A bad death: the importance of truth-telling at end-of-life ALTHEA HALCHUCK, APRIL , 2022 “Death would not be called bad, O people, if knew how to truly die.” — Nanak Her funeral was yesterday, and there was a huge turn-out. She was 67 and never cussed or said a bad word about anyone. She was much-friended and well-loved. In late January 2022, she was diagnosed with stage-4 cancer in her lungs, which metastasized to her liver and bones. At first, some medico used the word ...

8 comments

General & Hellos

Apr 23, 2022Apr 2022

Posted by HippieChick58

I am so going to use this now!

1 comment

News & Links

Apr 23, 2022Apr 2022

Posted by HippieChick58

LINKCOVID-19 was third leading cause of death in the United States in 2021, CDC reports

COVID-19 was the third leading cause of death in the United States in 2021, following heart disease and cancer, for the second year in a row, according to provisional data from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The overall age-adjusted death rate for all causes in the U.S. was about 1% higher in 2021 than in was in 2020, but the death rate from COVID-19 increased by nearly 20%. The data was published Friday in the CDC's Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report. More than one ...

1 comment

Posts

Apr 23, 2022Apr 2022

Posted by HippieChick58

SERENDIPITOUS ser·en·dip·i·tous adjective occurring or discovered by chance in a happy or beneficial way. "a serendipitous encounter"

1 comment

Posts

Apr 23, 2022Apr 2022

Posted by HippieChick58

KALEIDOSCOPE ka·lei·do·scope noun a toy consisting of a tube containing mirrors and pieces of colored glass or paper, whose reflections produce changing patterns that are visible through an eyehole when the tube is rotated. a constantly ...

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Uncommon words and their meanings.

Apr 23, 2022Apr 2022

Posted by HippieChick58

Mellifluous mel·lif·lu·ous adjective (of a voice or words) sweet or musical; pleasant to hear. "the voice was mellifluous and smooth"

2 comments

Trump Pinata

Apr 23, 2022Apr 2022

Posted by HippieChick58

LINKDisturbing New Court Filing Just Brutally Exposed Donald Trump, As Secret Service Allegedly Warned The White House Of Violence Against The Capitol Two Days Before Attack, Trump Ignored It And Still Called On His Supporters To March To The Capitol

by Andrea Thompson If there were ever any truly damning evidence against former President Donald Trump in connection to his major role in inciting the January 6th Capitol attack, this is it. Mark Meadows, the former president’s old Chief of Staff, has recently lodged a lawsuit against the January 6th House Select Committee over what he claims is an overly broad subpoena from the panel to appear before them and deliver his testimony regarding his knowledge of the January 6th events, as...

5 comments

News & Links

Apr 23, 2022Apr 2022

Posted by HippieChick58

LINKLetters From An American 04/22/2022

Heather Cox Richardson “I don’t recall.” “I don’t remember.” Georgia Republican representative Marjorie Taylor Greene today took the stand before an administrative law judge in Atlanta to defend her right to be on the ballot in Georgia after five voters challenged her inclusion on the grounds she had violated the third section of the Fourteenth Amendment, which prohibits anyone from holding office who has taken an oath to support the Constitution and then participates in an ...

4 comments

Watchers

Apr 22, 2022Apr 2022

Posted by HippieChick58

Marsronson002 Persistent little bugger. He's trying to get my phone number, and trying to convince me that he's the one. He is not overly pretty, member since 2/1/22. No sign of NNES in his correspondence. His pictures don't pop in ...

3 comments

News & Links

Apr 22, 2022Apr 2022

Posted by HippieChick58

LINKLetters From An American 04/21/2022

Heather Cox Richardson Today started with a New York Times story by journalists Alexander Burns and Jonathan Martin, based on their forthcoming book, detailing how the two top Republicans in Congress during the January 6 insurrection, then–Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) and House minority leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA), blamed Trump for the attack on the Capitol and wanted him removed from office. On the night of January 6, McConnell told colleagues that the party would ...

2 comments

General & Hellos

Apr 21, 2022Apr 2022

Posted by HippieChick58

Would you consider give three MONTHS notice?

13 comments

News & Links

Apr 21, 2022Apr 2022

Posted by HippieChick58

LINKNew strains of the omicron variant are still evolving

Arguably the most successful version of the 0micron coronavirus variant to date has been BA.2 — but it hasn't been resting on its laurels. BA.2 has been picking up mutations, sometimes shifting into sleeker and, incredibly, even faster versions of itself. Global variant trackers have found 21 viral offspring associated with BA.2. Most of these look like underachievers, with mutations of little consequence. But two of these offshoots — BA.2.12.1 and BA.2.12 — have been fueling a rise ...

3 comments

News & Links

Apr 21, 2022Apr 2022

Posted by HippieChick58

LINKWhy the Federal Reserve has made a historic mistake on inflation | The Economist

What comes next will set the path for the world economy Apr 23rd 2022 Central banks are supposed to inspire confidence in the economy by keeping inflation low and stable. America’s Federal Reserve has suffered a hair-raising loss of control. In March consumer prices were 8.5% higher than a year earlier, the fastest annual rise since 1981. In Washington inflation-watching is usually the preserve of wonks in shabby offices. Now nearly a fifth of Americans say inflation is the ...

2 comments

News & Links

Apr 21, 2022Apr 2022

Posted by HippieChick58

LINKLetters From An American 05/20/2022

Heather Cox Richardson Yesterday, Arizona governor Doug Ducey brought the Republican governors of 26 states together in the “American Governors’ Border Strike Force” to serve as a “force multiplier” in what he says is “criminal activity directly tied to our border.” For all of Ducey’s rhetoric about how the force is supposed to “accomplish what the federal government has failed at, protecting our communities from ruthless transnational criminal organizations,” the ...

2 comments

General & Hellos

Apr 20, 2022Apr 2022

Posted by HippieChick58

LINKI got in trouble for talking to my coworker about how much money I make — Ask a Manager

I got in trouble for talking to my coworker about how much I make by ALISON GREEN on APRIL 20, 2022 A reader writes: Recently, I was given feedback from my manager stating they had concerns with confidentiality and discretion when it came to my work. They said it had been brought to their attention that I had shared what my salary was with a team member. My manager did not share who it was, for confidentiality reasons, but I have spoken to person about salary and that is my team ...

4 comments

Academic (e.g., Science)

Apr 20, 2022Apr 2022

Posted by HippieChick58

LINKYour Local Epidemiologist Transmission on Planes

Katelyn Jetelina On Monday, a Florida judge voided the U.S. mandate for public transit, which includes planes, trains, and buses. Several airlines immediately announced they dropped masks. And, in true pandemic fashion, an intense debate about masks ensued. There are health equity concerns. There are legal concerns, like setting the precedent that the CDC doesn’t have authority during a public health emergency. And there are epidemiological concerns. In particular, I’ve noticed ...

4 comments

News & Links

Apr 20, 2022Apr 2022

Posted by HippieChick58

LINKLetters From An American 04/19/2022

Heather Cox Richardson Last night, lawyers for Ed Vallejo, one of 11 members of the right-wing Oath Keepers gang accused of seditious conspiracy for their actions surrounding January 6, filed a motion for Vallejo’s release from pretrial jail. Vallejo’s lawyer describes his client as having “a passionate yet gentle nature, as well as love of animals,” and quotes one of Vallejo’s friends as saying the accused conspirator is a “true man of passion” whose “tools are an ...

2 comments

Academic (e.g., Science)

Apr 19, 2022Apr 2022

Posted by HippieChick58

LINKYour Local Epidemiologist: State of Affairs: April 19

Katelyn Jetelina Last week, the WHO confirmed that we are, in fact, still in a pandemic. The Emergency Committee met recently and unanimously concluded it’s too soon to declare the emergency over. The Director General, Dr. Tedros, agreed: “It’s far from being the time to drop our guard, this is the moment to work even harder to save lives.” In the latest WHO epidemiological report, every region in the world has decreasing trends. In even better news, the number of global deaths ...

1 comment

News & Links

Apr 19, 2022Apr 2022

Posted by HippieChick58

LINKLetters From An American 04/15/2022

Heather Cox Richardson Today is tax day, since public workers in Washington, D.C., got April 15, our usual tax day, off to celebrate Emancipation Day. That holiday honors April 16, the day that President Abraham Lincoln in 1862 signed the law emancipating enslaved Black Americans in the nation’s capital. The Biden administration used the occasion of tax day to highlight the difference between its tax policies and those of the current Republican Party. Biden is calling for making ...

3 comments

News & Links

Apr 18, 2022Apr 2022

Posted by HippieChick58

LINKLetters From An American 04/17/2022

Heather Cox Richardson Today, political scientist and member of the Russian legislative body Vyacheslav Nikonov said, “in reality, we embody the forces of good in the modern world because this clash is metaphysical…. We are on the side of good against the forces of absolute evil…. This is truly a holy war that we’re waging, and we have to win it and of course we will because our cause is just. We have no other choice. Our cause is not only just, our cause is righteous and victory will...

5 comments

Religion & Spirituality

Apr 16, 2022Apr 2022

Posted by HippieChick58

LINKA Funeral for My Christianity

A Funeral for My Christianity APRIL 10, 2022 / JOHN PAVLOVITZ A friend told me that I seemed angry lately and at first it really pissed me off. I instantly mounted a spirited, vigorous defense laying out the reasons she had assessed me incorrectly but soon found myself trailing off, resigned to a harsh, unwelcome truth: She was right, or at least she was in the ballpark. It’s an easy mistake to make. From the outside grief looks a lot like anger. The external markers tend to be...

4 comments

News & Links

Apr 16, 2022Apr 2022

Posted by HippieChick58

LINKIt's not over: COVID-19 cases are on the rise again in US

Yet again, the U.S. is trudging into what could be another COVID-19 surge, with cases rising nationally and in most states after a two-month decline. One big unknown? "We don't know how high that mountain's gonna grow," said Dr. Stuart Campbell Ray, an infectious disease expert at Johns Hopkins University. No one expects a peak nearly as high as the last one, when the contagious omicron version of the coronavirus ripped through the population. But experts warn that the coming wave – ...

4 comments

News & Links

Apr 16, 2022Apr 2022

Posted by HippieChick58

LINKLetters From An American 04/15/2022

Heather Cox Richardson Early in the morning of April 15, 1865, President Abraham Lincoln breathed his last. The night before, he and his wife had gone to see a play—a comedy. One of the last men to talk to him before he left for the theater said it seemed the cares of the previous four years were melting away. The Confederacy was all but defeated, and the nation seemed to be on its way to a prosperous, inclusive new future. The bullet that killed Lincoln had been delivered by John Wilkes...

1 comment

News & Links

Apr 15, 2022Apr 2022

Posted by HippieChick58

LINKLetters From An American 04/14/2022

Heather Cox Richardson Today’s stories illuminate the increasingly dangerous international struggle between democracy and authoritarianism. On the world stage, that struggle is most visible these days in the invasion of democratic Ukraine by the authoritarian president of Russia, Vladimir Putin. Putin apparently believed his invasion would be a cakewalk, but we are now in day 51 of Putin’s brutal attack, and while Ukraine is badly battered, it is holding strong. Yesterday, Ukrainian...

2 comments

News & Links

Apr 14, 2022Apr 2022

Posted by HippieChick58

Fox News viewers changed their minds after getting paid to watch CNN for a month

Some hope we can bridge the political divide. The prevailing logic in today’s political world is that polarization is worsening because people live in media echo chambers where they are only exposed to outlets that mirror their views. People who live in echo chambers come to distrust any opinions that exist outside of their bubbles and when they're not exposed to any conflicting information. This creates a scenario where the person becomes increasingly entrenched in their worldview....

3 comments

News & Links

Apr 14, 2022Apr 2022

Posted by HippieChick58

LINKLetters From An American 04/13/2022

Heather Cox Richardson “Democrats need to make more noise,” Senator Brian Schatz (D-HI) told Greg Sargent of the Washington Post. “We have to scream from the rooftops, because this is a battle for the free world now.” Sargent interviewed Schatz after the senator called out Senator Josh Hawley (R-MO) on the floor of the Senate on April 7 for the profound disconnect between the Republican senator’s speeches and his actions. Hawley has placed a hold on President Joe Biden’s ...

0 comments

News & Links

Apr 13, 2022Apr 2022

Posted by HippieChick58

LINKIs It Ethical To Use Amazon? | Current Affairs

Opinions please, read and tell me what you think. Should we be ashamed of ourselves for patronizing evil corporations? by NATHAN J. ROBINSON Just about every week, I order a thing from Amazon. Sometimes it is a connector cable or some teabags. Occasionally it is a bag of gummy volcanoes. Checking my order history, I find that most recently it was a pair of lamp harps and a copy of John Cassidy’s How Markets Fail. I have an Amazon Prime account, which not only gets me free two-day ...

19 comments

News & Links

Apr 13, 2022Apr 2022

Posted by HippieChick58

LINKLetters From An American 04/12/2022

Heather Cox Richardson On April 12, 1945, a visibly exhausted President Franklin Delano Roosevelt jerked in his chair while having his portrait painted in Warm Springs, Georgia. FDR put his hand up, said “I have a terrific pain in the back of my head,” and lost consciousness. He died of a massive cerebral hemorrhage within hours. When FDR entered the White House in 1933, he undertook to rebuild the nation after Republicans had run it into the ground. Believing that businessmen ...

1 comment

News & Links

Apr 12, 2022Apr 2022

Posted by HippieChick58

LINKLetters From An American 04/11/2022

Heather Cox Richardson Last week, we lost a crucially important voice in the media when media reporter Eric Boehlert died unexpectedly. In his last column for his publication Press Run, titled “Why is the press rooting against Biden?,” Boehlert wrote that there is such a “glaring disconnect between reality and how the press depicts White House accomplishments” that it seems the press is “determined to keep Biden pinned down.” Boehlert pointed to the extraordinary poll showing ...

1 comment

News & Links

Apr 11, 2022Apr 2022

Posted by HippieChick58

LINKTeachers Are Done. No, Really.

I've been asked often why teachers are fleeing the classroom and while I can't speak for all teachers, many of our reasons appear to be universal. Teachers are leaving the classroom for a multitude of reasons. Prior to the pandemic, the system was already very much broken, but teachers were able to hold all the pieces together, often at the expense of their own families, their own mental health, and their own personal lives. Teaching was martyrdom for the greater societal good. In some ways, ...

1 comment

News & Links

Apr 10, 2022Apr 2022

Posted by HippieChick58

LINKTucker Carlson is Now Advocating For Violence Against Teachers.

The rhetoric just continues to escalate. By Lauren Elizabeth 04/10/2022 After Georgia Representative Marjorie Greene has been making the headlines for claiming Democrats were “pro-pedophile” and increasingly sounding like a leader who hopes to set the stage for genocide, FOX News’ own Tucker Carlson decided he was going to add to the increase in violent rhetoric coming from the right wing as well. On his April 8th show, Carlson decided to draw teachers and fathers into the mix....

16 comments

News & Links

Apr 10, 2022Apr 2022

Posted by HippieChick58

LINKLetters From An American 04/09/2022

Heather Cox Richardson On April 9, 1865, General Ulysses S. Grant got out of bed with a migraine. The pain had hit the day before as he rode through the Virginia countryside, where the United States Army had been harrying the Confederacy’s Army of Northern Virginia, commanded by General Robert E. Lee, for days. Grant knew it was only a question of time before Lee had to surrender. After four years of war, the people in the South were starving, and Lee’s army was melting away as ...

3 comments

News & Links

Apr 9, 2022Apr 2022

Posted by HippieChick58

LINKLetters From An American 04/08/2022

Heather Cox Richardson “I have dedicated my career to public service because I love this country and our Constitution and the rights that make us free," Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson said today at a White House ceremony celebrating her confirmation to the Supreme Court. Also today, we learned that Donald Trump, Jr., texted Trump’s White House chief of staff Mark Meadows on November 5, 2020, two days after the presidential election and two days before the media would call the election ...

1 comment

News & Links

Apr 8, 2022Apr 2022

Posted by HippieChick58

LINKWhy the BA.2 variant — the dominant strain in the US — hasn't shown signs of a surge

Maybe BA.2 really is the "stealth variant." The omicron subvariant caused as many as 3 in 4 cases of COVID- in the United States last week, according to the latest genomic surveillance from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, but so far, there are no signs of a looming surge in the U.S. Even as BA.2 has become dominant, overall numbers of cases are still decreasing, says Dr. Jessica Justman, an epidemiologist at Columbia University's Mailman School of Public Health. ...

2 comments

News & Links

Apr 8, 2022Apr 2022

Posted by HippieChick58

LINKLetters From An American 04/07/2022

Heather Cox Richardson Today, Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson was confirmed to become Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson. The Senate confirmed President Joe Biden’s nominee by a vote of 53 to 47, with three Republicans joining all 50 Democrats in favor of confirmation. The three Republicans voting yes were Senators Susan Collins (R-ME), Lisa Murkowski (R-AK), and Mitt Romney (R-UT). Jackson’s elevation will not change the legal philosophy of the court. She will replace Justice ...

2 comments

News & Links

Apr 7, 2022Apr 2022

Posted by HippieChick58

LINKLetters From An American 04/06/2022

Heather Cox Richardson Today, all but two of the Republicans in the House of Representatives voted against a resolution finding Trump aides Dan Scavino and Peter Navarro in contempt of Congress for refusing to comply with subpoenas from the House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the U.S. Capitol. Among the early “no” votes was Representative Greg Pence (R-IN), whose brother, Vice President Mike Pence, was in danger from the mob on January 6 after then-president ...

3 comments

News & Links

Apr 6, 2022Apr 2022

Posted by HippieChick58

LINKLetters From An American 04/05/2022

Heather Cox Richardson Today, former president Barack Obama returned to the White House at President Joe Biden’s invitation to talk about the Affordable Care Act (ACA), popularly known as Obamacare. He noted there have been changes in the White House since he left in 2017. For one thing, “here’s a cat running around,” he joked, “which I guarantee you Bo and Sunny would have been very unhappy about.” Obama signed the ACA into law in 2010. Today, 31 ...

1 comment

News & Links

Apr 5, 2022Apr 2022

Posted by HippieChick58

LINKLetters From An American 04/04/2022

Heather Cox Richardson Today the Senate Judiciary Committee deadlocked, 11 to 11, on whether to send Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson’s nomination to the Supreme Court to the full Senate for a vote. The Democrats can still move the nomination forward through procedural measures, and three Republicans—Susan Collins (R-ME), Lisa Murkowski (R-AK), and Mitt Romney (R-UT)—have said they will vote for her, so her confirmation is assured (even if Kyrsten Sinema (D-AZ), who has not yet said how ...

1 comment

Uncommon words and their meanings.

Apr 5, 2022Apr 2022

Posted by HippieChick58

PLETHORA This is one of my favorite words, it really means alot to me :) pleth·o·ra /ˈpleTHərə/ noun 1: a large or excessive amount of (something). "a plethora of committees and subcommittees" Similar: excess, abundance, overabundance, ...

6 comments

News & Links

Apr 3, 2022Apr 2022

Posted by HippieChick58

LINKAmericans are using credit cards to pay for everything. What happens when the bills come due?

The promise of economic recovery has rung in America's ears since the false promises of an end to the pandemic in 2021. Lawmakers, business owners, and speculators assured us that hallmarks of our consumer life, like casual spending on nonessentials, were returning, and that this would mean the society that houses the world’s largest economy could finally assume a new normal. Soon enough we would be able to take off our masks, go back to work, and have fun like nothing ever happened. Of ...

7 comments

News & Links

Apr 3, 2022Apr 2022

Posted by HippieChick58

LINKI no longer grade my students' work – and I wish I had stopped sooner

I no longer grade my students’ work – and I wish I had stopped sooner March 29, 2022 Elisabeth Gruner Professor of English, University of Richmond I’ve been teaching college English for more than 30 years. Four years ago, I stopped putting grades on written work, and it has transformed my teaching and my students’ learning. My only regret is that I didn’t do it sooner. Starting in elementary school, teachers rate student work – sometimes with stars and checkmarks, ...

2 comments

News & Links

Apr 3, 2022Apr 2022

Posted by HippieChick58

LINKLetters From An American 04/02/2022

Heather Cox Richardson Today, Ukrainian soldiers recaptured the areas around Kyiv that Russian forces had taken early in the invasion. Retaking the territory, they found mined homes, executed civilians, and, in the city of Bucha near Kyiv, a mass grave of nearly 280 civilians. In the town of Trostyanets, the evacuating Russians defecated in the rooms of the police station and on a dead civilian outside. The reported war crimes and atrocities have made it impossible to separate the ...

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News & Links

Apr 2, 2022Apr 2022

Posted by HippieChick58

LINKLetters From An American 04/01/2022

Heather Cox Richardson The March jobs report came out this morning and, once again, it was terrific. The economy added 431,000 jobs in March, and the figures for January and February were revised upward by 95,000. The U.S has added 1.7 million jobs between January and March, and unemployment is near an all-time low of 3.6%. As employment has risen, employers have had to raise wages to get workers. So, wages are up 5.6% for the year that ended in February. Inflation in the U.S. is the ...

3 comments

News & Links

Apr 1, 2022Apr 2022

Posted by HippieChick58

LINK'I was horrified': Woman reports being tracked by Apple AirTag

BOSTON — A Massachusetts woman says she received a notification from Apple which alerted her that someone was tracking her through an AirTag, a small device that is meant to track belongings such as a wallet or a set of keys. Francesca Nardelli, of Boston, said that when she shared her experience on social media, she was flooded with messages from other women who said the same thing happened to them. "I was horrified," Nardelli said. "It said the owner of the device could see my ...

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News & Links

Apr 1, 2022Apr 2022

Posted by HippieChick58

LINKLetters From An American 03/31/2022

Heather Cox Richardson Today, Judge Mark E. Walker of the Federal District Court in Tallahassee, Florida, struck down much of the new elections law passed by the Florida legislature after the 2020 election. This is the first time a federal court has sought to overrule the recent attempts of Republican-dominated state legislatures to rig the vote, and Walker made thorough work of it. Four cases were consolidated into one: the League of Women Voters v. Florida Secretary of State Laurel M. ...

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General & Hellos

Apr 1, 2022Apr 2022

Posted by HippieChick58

Today's Lesson:

1 comment

News & Links

Mar 31, 2022Mar 2022

Posted by HippieChick58

LINKWomen Are Calling Out ‘Medical Gaslighting’

Studies show female patients and people of color are more likely to have their symptoms dismissed by medical providers. Experts say: Keep asking questions. By Melinda Wenner Moyer Published March 28, 2022 Jenneh Rishe could easily run six miles in under 45 minutes — until suddenly she couldn’t. In the spring of 2019, Mrs. Rishe, now 35, began finding her daily jogs a struggle. Years earlier, she had been diagnosed with two congenital heart conditions that, she said, doctors ...

9 comments

News & Links

Mar 31, 2022Mar 2022

Posted by HippieChick58

LINKThe necessity of secularist small dissent

Overview: Secularists should not remain silent when religious people offer opinions but should rejoin with small, pleasant disagreement. Secularists often say nothing when they should really speak up. Sometimes taciturnity is merely manners, perhaps thought of as good manners. There is no need to mar a dinner party with a sharp and disagreeable remark, right? No need to set the table on a roar with a cutting witticism offered at a guest’s or a host’s expense. But how many ...

6 comments

News & Links

Mar 31, 2022Mar 2022

Posted by HippieChick58

LINKLetters From An American

Heather Cox Richardson CBS News has hired Mick Mulvaney as a paid on-air contributor. In his first official appearance on Tuesday morning to talk about President Joe Biden’s budget proposal, anchor Anne-Marie Green introduced Mulvaney as “a former Office of Management and Budget director,” and said, “So happy to have you here…. You’re the guy to ask about this.” Mulvaney was a far-right U.S. representative from South Carolina from 2011 to 2017, when he went to work for ...

3 comments

News & Links

Mar 30, 2022Mar 2022

Posted by HippieChick58

LINKLetters From An American 03/29/2022

Heather Cox Richardson Yesterday, a decision by Judge David Carter said that Trump had likely committed a federal crime when he was part of a conspiracy to obstruct Congress’s count of the votes of the Electoral College on January 6, 2021. Today, a Trump spokesperson called yesterday’s decision “absurd and baseless.” But the investigation into the events of January 6 is producing more and more evidence about the attempt to overturn the results of the 2020 election, and it is ...

14 comments

News & Links

Mar 29, 2022Mar 2022

Posted by HippieChick58

LINKLetters From An American 03/28/2022

Heather Cox Richardson Today, United States District Judge David O. Carter of the United States District Court for the Central District of California ordered John Eastman to disclose 101 documents to the House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the U.S. Capitol. Eastman is a former law school dean at Chapman University and author of the Eastman memo outlining a plan for Vice President Mike Pence to throw the 2020 election to Donald Trump. He also spoke at Trump’s ...

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News & Links

Mar 26, 2022Mar 2022

Posted by HippieChick58

LINK To some, what goes on inside an HR person's mind is a source of mystery. They have to toe the line between upper management and other employees, and you're left never fully knowing the intention behind an email, a work party or ...

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News & Links

Mar 26, 2022Mar 2022

Posted by HippieChick58

LINKLetters From An American 03/25/2022

Heather Cox Richardson In confirmation hearings this week for her elevation to a Supreme Court seat, the highly qualified and well-respected Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson endured vicious attacks from Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee, who vow to reject her confirmation despite the fact that her record is stronger than those of recent Republican nominees and that 58% of Americans want her to be confirmed. (In contrast, only 42% of Americans wanted Justice Amy Coney Barrett ...

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News & Links

Mar 25, 2022Mar 2022

Posted by HippieChick58

LINKWhy tracking COVID-19 case rates still matters

COVID-19 cases in the United States have fallen more than 95% from their peak in January, and on Friday, Hawaii became the last state to roll back its indoor mask mandate. Testing has slowed, and states are scaling back on reporting surveillance data, too. But experts say that tracking new COVID-19 cases is still important — even if it is an imperfect measure. "Dating back to the beginning of the pandemic, we've always known that case numbers were being undercounted. It was never quite ...

3 comments

News & Links

Mar 25, 2022Mar 2022

Posted by HippieChick58

LINKLetters From An American 02/24/2022

Heather Cox Richardson “We are very pleased, dear President, dear Joe, to welcome you again in Brussels,” European Council president Charles Michel of Belgium told President Joe Biden today. “Your presence here and your participation in this European Council meeting is a very strong signal.” The European Council is made up of the heads of states of the European Union states, along with the President of the European Commission, the executive branch of the European Union. “Our ...

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News & Links

Mar 24, 2022Mar 2022

Posted by HippieChick58

LINKLetters From An American 02/26/2022

Heather Cox Richardson “O, let America be America again— The land that never has been yet— And yet must be—the land where every man is free.” Langston Hughes wrote these words in a poem published in 1936. He wrote as the Dust Bowl baked in the heat, Louisiana senator Huey Long died by gunfire, the Supreme Court invalidated much of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s New Deal, a serial killer terrorized Cleveland, workers finished Hoover Dam, the Depression dragged on, ...

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News & Links

Mar 23, 2022Mar 2022

Posted by HippieChick58

LINKLetters From An American

Heather Cox Richardson Right on cue, Republican Senator Mike Braun of Indiana today told a reporter that states not only should decide the issue of abortion but should also be able to decide the issues of whether interracial marriage should be legal and whether couples should have access to contraception. He told a reporter: “Well, you can list a whole host of issues, when it comes down to whatever they are, I’m going to say that they’re not going to all make you happy within a given ...

3 comments

News & Links

Mar 22, 2022Mar 2022

Posted by HippieChick58

LINKLetters From An American 03/21/2022

Heather Cox Richardson Today is the anniversary of Georgia Senator Alexander Stephens’s Cornerstone Speech, given in 1861 just after he became the provisional vice president of the Confederacy. All these years later, the themes of that speech are still with us. Stephens spoke in Savannah, Georgia, to explain the difference between the United States and the fledgling Confederacy. That difference, he said, was slavery. The American Constitution was defective because it based the government...

4 comments

News & Links

Mar 21, 2022Mar 2022

Posted by HippieChick58

LINKLetters From An American 03/20/2022

Heather Cox Richardson Tomorrow, the Senate will begin confirmation hearings for Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson, nominated by President Joe Biden on February 25, 2022, to take a seat on the Supreme Court of the United States. Judge Jackson is currently a federal judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. This small circuit is prominent and prestigious because its location in Washington, D.C., means that it decides cases concerning the U.S. government. It is...

1 comment

General & Hellos

Mar 20, 2022Mar 2022

Posted by HippieChick58

LINKWhy Would A God Need to be Worshipped? (or is God a Karen?) - YouTube

The bible says over and over again that God is jealous while also telling us not to be jealous. It also tells us to be meek while also asking us to worship him. Why is there a difference? Why would the writers of the bible focus on this aspect so much?

14 comments

News & Links

Mar 20, 2022Mar 2022

Posted by HippieChick58

LINKJustice Clarence Thomas hospitalized with infection, Supreme Court says

He was admitted to the hospital after experiencing flu-like symptoms. Justice Clarence Thomas has been hospitalized with an infection, the Supreme Court announced in a statement. Thomas was admitted to Sibley Memorial Hospital in Washington, D.C., on Friday evening after experiencing flu-like symptoms, Supreme Court spokesperson Patricia McCabe said in a statement. He was diagnosed with an infection after undergoing tests and is being treated with intravenous antibiotics, McCabe ...

7 comments

Academic (e.g., Science)

Mar 20, 2022Mar 2022

Posted by HippieChick58

LINKThe helical model - our solar system is a vortex - YouTube

This is fascinating!

7 comments

Uncommon words and their meanings.

Mar 20, 2022Mar 2022

Posted by HippieChick58

I used this word yesterday, thought I'd bring it over here. Crepuscular cre·pus·cu·lar adjective of, resembling, or relating to twilight. ZOOLOGY (of an animal) appearing or active in twilight. A crepuscular animal is one that is active ...

5 comments

News & Links

Mar 19, 2022Mar 2022

Posted by HippieChick58

LINKLetters From An American 03/18/2022

Heather Cox Richardson This morning, President Joe Biden and his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping spoke about the Russian invasion of Ukraine, speaking personally for the first time since last November. In early February, before the invasion, Xi and Russian president Vladimir Putin met and issued a 5000-word statement pledging limitless “friendship.” But it is not clear Xi expected either the invasion or how badly it would go for Russia, as Ukraine has held its own against a military ...

2 comments

News & Links

Mar 18, 2022Mar 2022

Posted by HippieChick58

LINKLetters From An American 03/17/2022

Heather Cox Richardson While Russia’s war on Ukraine continues in all its blistering horror, there are glimmerings that suggest Russia’s position in its assault on Ukraine is weakening. A senior U.S. defense official today told reporters that while there is significant fighting going on, the only major military news is that Russia has now launched more than 1000 missiles at Ukraine. Ukraine’s allies are working on supplying Ukraine with long-range air defense systems. The Pentagon also ...

3 comments

News & Links

Mar 17, 2022Mar 2022

Posted by HippieChick58

LINKLetters From An American 03/16/2022

Heather Cox Richardson Today, Russia’s war on Ukraine gave us a penetrating snapshot of democracy and autocracy. This morning, Ukraine president Volodymyr Zelensky addressed a joint session of Congress virtually; his speech was live streamed to the American people. Looking tired, he wore a green military tee shirt and was unshaven, sitting next to a large Ukrainian flag, a visual representation of his besieged country. Speaking from Kyiv, Zelensky emphasized that he and Ukrainians ...

2 comments

News & Links

Mar 16, 2022Mar 2022

Posted by HippieChick58

LINKLetters From An American 03/15/2022

Heather Cox Richardson “I want to thank the Russian Academy for this Lifetime Achievement Award.” That was former secretary of state Hillary Clinton’s response to the news that her name was among those of the people Russia sanctioned today, forbidding their entry into Russia and freezing any Russian assets they might have. Clinton, of course, was the one who warned in 2016 that then-candidate Donald Trump would be “ Putin’s puppet” if he were ...

2 comments

News & Links

Mar 15, 2022Mar 2022

Posted by HippieChick58

LINKLetters From An American 03/14/2022

Heather Cox Richardson Today, Russia continued its offensive against Ukraine, striking hard at civilians in Kyiv and Mariupol. The Russian army is gaining ground, but it appears to be sustaining massive losses of personnel and equipment which, in turn, is making leaders focus on grinding Ukraine into submission through sheer brutality. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) announced that Ukraine president Volodymyr Zelensky will speak virtually ...

2 comments

News & Links

Mar 14, 2022Mar 2022

Posted by HippieChick58

LINKHere's what experts say could lie ahead for the third year of the pandemic

Things seem to be looking up as the U.S. crosses into year three of the COVID-19 pandemic. Vaccines still do a good job of keeping people alive and out of the hospital. There's increasing access to tests and treatments. The numbers of cases, hospitalizations and deaths are heading in the right direction. If living in a Covid world has taught us anything, however, it's that the coronavirus can surprise even the smartest public health experts, and the world certainly isn't out of the woods yet....

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News & Links

Mar 14, 2022Mar 2022

Posted by HippieChick58

LINKLetters From An American 03/13/2022

Heather Cox Richardson Russian president Vladimir Putin has asked China for help in his war against Ukraine, according to U.S. officials. Observers see this as a defining moment for China and the direction it wants to take in the twenty-first century. In what might be a sign of how China will react to that request, the spokesperson for the Chinese embassy in Washington said he had never heard of it. "The high priority now is to prevent the tense situation from escalating or even getting out ...

4 comments

News & Links

Mar 13, 2022Mar 2022

Posted by HippieChick58

LINKWilliam Hurt Dies: Oscar-Winning Actor Was 71 – Deadline

William Hurt Dies: Oscar-Winning Actor For ‘Kiss Of The Spider Woman’ Was 71 William Hurt, who often played a quiet intellectual in his earlier acting roles, but also later appeared in science fiction and Marvel films, has died just a week before his 72nd birthday. William Hurt’s son, Will, posted today that his father has died. It was announced in May 2018 that the elder Hurt had terminal prostate cancer that had spread to the bone. “It is with great sadness that the Hurt family ...

4 comments

News & Links

Mar 13, 2022Mar 2022

Posted by HippieChick58

LINKLetters From An American 03/12/2022

Heather Cox Richardson In our history, the United States has gone through turning points when we have had to adjust our democratic principles to new circumstances. The alternative is to lose those principles to a small group of people who insist that democracy is outdated and must be replaced by a government run by a few leaders or, now, by a single man. The Declaration of Independence asserted as “self-evident” that all people are created equal and that God and the laws of nature ...

2 comments

News & Links

Mar 12, 2022Mar 2022

Posted by HippieChick58

LINK24-year-old's sterilization photoshoot sparks conversation about women choosing child-free lives

Whereas I always knew I wanted kids, have have never regretted having them, my middle daughter does not want children and I support her decision 1000%. Her dad otoh not so much. That daughter is an excellent auntie, and she is now parenting her parents, she's not missing anything. 'While I have many reasons for not wanting to get pregnant and wanting to be child-free, at the end of the day, 'I don't want to have kids' is reason enough and should be respected.' A 24-year-old's ...

4 comments

News & Links

Mar 11, 2022Mar 2022

Posted by HippieChick58

LINKLetters From An American 03/10/2022

Heather Cox Richardson On June 5, 1944, the day before the D-Day operation in which the Allied forces in World War II invaded German-occupied western Europe, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt gave his 29th Fireside Chat. Roosevelt told the American people that Rome had fallen to American and Allied troops the previous day. He used the talk not only to announce this important milestone in the deadly war, but also to remind Americans they were engaged in a war between democracy and ...

3 comments

News & Links

Mar 10, 2022Mar 2022

Posted by HippieChick58

LINKLetters From An American 03/9/2022

Heather Cox Richardson Yesterday, the Department of Justice indicted Henry “Enrique” Tarrio on a conspiracy charge in the January 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol. Tarrio is a leader of the far-right extremist Proud Boys, the white supremacists that former president Trump told to stand back and stand by in his September 2020 debate with Joe Biden. Tarrio was not at the Capitol itself on January 6th because a court had ordered him to leave the city the day before after destroying a ...

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News & Links

Mar 9, 2022Mar 2022

Posted by HippieChick58

LINKEvery household is eligible for additional free COVID-19 tests from the government

All U.S. households are now eligible to order four additional free COVID-19 tests from COVIDtests.gov. When the government site launched in January, it received more than 45 million orders. Now officials say fewer than 100,000 orders a day are coming in for the packages of four free rapid tests per household, delivered by the U.S. Postal Service. Experts say testing will become more important with mask requirements now easing. "If infection control is still our priority, testing ...

4 comments

News & Links

Mar 9, 2022Mar 2022

Posted by HippieChick58

LINKLetters From An American 03/08/2022

Heather Cox Richardson This morning, President Joe Biden announced an executive order that will ban the import of Russian oil, liquified natural gas, and coal to the United States, as part of a plan to cut Russia off from the world economy. Biden did this under pressure from Congress, which was preparing its own bill for this outcome. The administration hesitated to take this step independently from other allies and partners. In 2021, the U.S. imported only 3% of its oil from Russia, and ...

1 comment

News & Links

Mar 8, 2022Mar 2022

Posted by HippieChick58

LINKLetters From An American 03/07/2022

Heather Cox Richardson For all the breathless reports of Russia’s war on Ukraine, it is unclear who is gaining advantage. This is in part because both sides are fighting the war with propaganda as well as with missiles, and it is hard to sort out what is real and what is not. Indeed, image and reality may merge, since images often shape what later becomes real. So, for example, the many stories of Ukrainian resistance feed that resistance, while the stories of Russian failures hurt morale....

3 comments

News & Links

Mar 7, 2022Mar 2022

Posted by HippieChick58

LINKLetters From An American 3/6/2022

Heather Cox Richardson It was a beautiful sunny day today in Selma, Alabama, where thousands of people, including Vice President Kamala Harris and five other senior White House officials, met to honor the 57th anniversary of Bloody Sunday, when law enforcement officers tried to beat into silence those Black Americans marching for their right to have a say in the government under which they lived. The story of March 7 in Selma is the story of Americans determined to bring to life the ...

5 comments

Uncommon words and their meanings.

Mar 6, 2022Mar 2022

Posted by HippieChick58

LINKHas 'Run' Run Amok? It Has 645 Meanings ... So Far : NPR

OK, this is a common word, but did you know this word has 645 definitions? Seriously. RUN: One three-letter word does much of the heavy lifting in the English language. The little word "run" — in its verb form alone — has 645 distinct meanings. Simon Winchester, author of The Professor and the Madman: A Tale of Murder, Insanity and the Making of the Oxford English Dictionary, explains the rise of "run" and the decline of a formerly rich word, "set."

1 comment

Uncommon words and their meanings.

Mar 6, 2022Mar 2022

Posted by HippieChick58

nullifidian A person having no faith or religious belief. Origin Mid 16th century from medieval Latin nullifidius (from nullus ‘no, none’ + fides ‘faith’) + -an. That would be me!! And likely you as well.

4 comments

News & Links

Mar 6, 2022Mar 2022

Posted by HippieChick58

LINKLetters From An American 03/05/2022

Heather Cox Richardson Russia’s war on Ukraine continues. If the broader patterns of war apply, Russian president Vladimir Putin is making the war as senselessly brutal as possible, likely hoping to force Ukraine to give in quickly before global sanctions completely crush Russia and the return of warm weather eases Europe’s need for Russian oil and gas. Russian shelling has created a humanitarian crisis in urban areas, and last night, a brief ceasefire designed to let residents of ...

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