Books

A New Red Scare Threatens American Democracy From Within the White House

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Can factual reporting diligently investigated and brilliantly written still make a difference? – The Big Picture – By Glynn Wilson – A new Red Scare threatens American democracy. This time, it’s not a deranged Senator from Wisconsin making all the noise and ruining lives. It’s the president himself, seemingly serving the interests of the new…

Wayne Perkins: The Story of a Swamper And a Sideman

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There for the Birth of Southern Rock, he took the Muscle Shoals swampy sound to London and blended that with the Rasta island beat, creating a new sound that transformed Reggae for mainstream audiences in Europe and America. – A Draft Book Proposal in Progress By Glynn “Cowboy” Wilson – MUSCLE SHOALS, Ala. – (Jan.…

Mark Twain Couldn’t Pull the Trigger: Instead He Wrote About a Jumping Frog

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Editor’s Note – Samuel Langhorne Clemens was once so down and out, broke and desperate in San Francisco that he took a loaded pistol and aimed it at his head. He couldn’t bring himself to pull the trigger, maybe out of sheer cowardice. He picked up a pen instead and wrote The Celebrated Jumping Frog…

Long Live Web Publishing: Too Bad About the Death of Print

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The Big Picture – By Glynn Wilson – Have you ever thought you lost something and then discovered it wasn’t lost after all? That’s how I felt Wednesday night winding down for sleep after watching a show on Netflix. Checking the calendar on the iPhone, it occurred to me it’s coming up on 10 years…

A Story Told is A Life Lived

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“A story told is a life lived.” – Unknown The Big Picture –  By Glynn Wilson –  CATOCTIN MOUNTAINS, Md. – If the story of the 21st century is just going to end up being one hellscape disaster after another, until most of the countries of the world live under tyrannical dictators who ignore all…

Why Can’t We Solve Problems? Because of the People Who Like to Break Things

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Secret Vistas –  By Glynn Wilson –  SHENANDOAH NATIONAL PARK, Va. — You don’t have to travel to some high mountain pass to find insight in this mixed up world. But maybe it helps. It seemed to help Moses, George Mallory and Elisha Mitchell, as I’ve written in the past. Climbing Mountains For Inspiration: What’s…

Part 5: On Unfulfilled Hopes, Shattered Dreams and Covering News in Washington, D.C.

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The Big Picture – By Glynn Wilson – WASHINGTON, D.C. — Within days of moving to the nation’s capital in 2004, I was the last reporter hired by States News Service operating out of a cool newsroom on Pennsylvania Avenue, a couple of blocks from the White House. It was right near a Metro tunnel,…

Part 4: On Unfulfilled Hopes, Shattered Dreams and the Big Easy

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The Big Picture – By Glynn Wilson – WASHINGTON, D.C. — It was as hot as I believed hot could get when I landed at the Louis Armstrong International Airport in New Orleans in the midst of the first August of the new millennium. Even in a summer Searsucker Suit the hot air hit you…

Part 3: On Unfulfilled Hopes, Shattered Dreams and Journalism

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The Big Picture – By Glynn Wilson – WASHINGTON, D.C. — One of the themes that emerges from this life analysis is that kids need heroes to inspire and emulate. That’s why it’s so important for young women to have role models, along with African Americans and other minorities in America. All I can do…

Part 2: On Unfulfilled Hopes, Shattered Dreams and Baseball

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The Big Picture – By Glynn Wilson – WASHINGTON, D.C. — Do you ever feel like you are marking time, waiting for something to happen? Something that is supposed to happen, but the timing is not yet right? I was thinking that recently when watching the movie “Field of Dreams.” “The one constant through all…

The State of the News Media and What That Means for Democracy

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“The basis of our governments being the opinion of the people, the very first object should be to keep that right; and were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter.” — Thomas Jefferson,…

Exploring the Mind of the Raven and the Bird’s Role in Human Culture and Evolution

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“This is an amazing book by an amazing author. Heinrich is a naturalist of the first rank, champion ultramarathoner, woodsman of skills seldom seen in modern times, and not least, as Mind of the Raven illustrates, a nature writer of uncommon talent. By living with the ravens for many years, literally at home and in…

Operation Zap: A Novel and Film by Aaron Murphy

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Editor’s Note: In 1992, while working as a staff writer and reporter for a chain of newspapers on the Gulf Coast, I stumbled onto a dangerous story involving electromagnetic fields and pulses being developed by Naval Intelligence in Pensacola, Florida. The stories I wrote about it were so controversial that a rogue agent working for…

The American Crisis: By Thomas Paine – 1776

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Editor’s Note: We publish this here today in honor of President’s Day, and especially to honor George Washington’s brilliant plan to cross the Delaware River and attack the British Red Coats at Trenton, New Jersey on the night of December 25, 1776, which turned the tide and gave the American Revolution the public opinion boost…

Common Sense: By Thomas Paine – 1776

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Editor’s Note: We publish this here today in honor of President’s Day. This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of…

Reflections on Dr. Martin Luther King

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By Bob Reilly – Rideshare by Robert: Every Ride’s a Short Story, contains stories, observations, inspirations, and reflections resulting from a 7-Year, 25,000 ride journey before, during and after the Covid-19 Pandemic. Here’s one story from the book: Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Passions were running high, and confusion, fear and chaos reigned. And as…

Two Independent Thinking News Writers Pass On in Knoxville

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Editor’s Note: This news comes with no personal regrets, since I didn’t know either of the deceased. But I knew Jack Neely some when writing for Metro Pulse myself, one of the most interesting alternative weeklies in the country in print and online in the late 20th century. It’s a sad day when anyone dies,…

President Barack Obama, Idiocracy and Our Epistemological Crisis

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By Glynn Wilson – This is something I’ve been thinking about and writing about for a long time, but now former President Barack Obama and The Atlantic are talking about it. In an exclusive interview by Jeffrey Goldberg, the former president identifies the greatest threats to the American experiment in democracy, explains why he’s still…

Alabama Scientist Mark Hainds Publishes Book as First to Hike Mexican Border

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By Glynn Wilson – Like many a fellow traveler before him inspired by the American landscape, Missouri country boy turned middle-aged Alabama forester Mark J. Hainds grew impatient with his life of teaching, raising a family, and conducting research to conserve and propagate the return of the longleaf pine forest in the South, long ago…

The Arc of the Moral Universe Doesn’t Bend Toward Justice Without Pressure

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Bending Toward Justice: The Birmingham Church Bombing that Changed the Course of Civil Rights, by Doug Jones, All Points Books, a division of St. Martin’s Press and MacMillan Books. Book Review – By Glynn Wilson – The inspiration for the title of Doug Jones’ emotional, inspiring and detailed account of the legal cases that brought…