Books

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,…

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…

Every Day Is a New Low in Trump’s White House

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The president steps over bright ethical and moral lines wherever he encounters them. Everyone in America saw it when he fired my boss. But I saw it firsthand time and time again. Editor’s Note: Andrew McCabe, the former deputy director of the FBI, was named acting director of the bureau after President Donald Trump fired…

Appomattox Court House: Robert E. Lee Surrenders to Grant, Ending Civil War

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By Glynn Wilson – APPOMATTOX, Virg. — We didn’t make it here in time for Memorial Day, but National Park Service rangers and volunteers say nearly 500 people showed up for the playing of “Taps” and holiday weekend programs. I don’t know for sure, but considering that Confederate sympathizers seem to generate more engagement these…

Kodachrome on Netflix: Author Tom Wolfe Dies at 88

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The Big Picture –  By Glynn Wilson – So as I was watching the Jonathan Tropper film Kodachrome last night on Netflix, putting me in an unusually nostalgic mood about an obsolete type of photography film, when my email notification bleep went off and I saw that the writer Tom Wolfe died at the age…

Contemplating the State of Things on Thoreau’s 200th Birthday

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By Glynn Wilson – WASHINGTON, D.C. — Henry David Thoreau is one of the founding fathers of American activism and civil rights as well as science and environmental writing. Clearly my own life and career are inspired by my own reading of Thoreau. I mean I got rid of most of my worldly possessions about…

Setting the Record Straight on the Lewis and Clark Expedition

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The Western pioneer and cowboy myth is huge, but not so much from the Native American perspective. By Glynn Wilson – Editor-in-Chief – EDITOR’S NOTE: There are two kinds of people in the world. Which kind are you? Do you like reading the pretty little patriotic myth? Or would you rather see a real journalist…