OPINION

The Logic of Destruction: How to Resist

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‘We must all hang together or we will all surely hang separately.’ – Ben Franklin Guest Column – Dr. Timothy D. Snyder – Richard C. Levin Professor of History at Yale University – “What is a country? The way its people govern themselves. America exists because its people elect those who make and execute laws.…

A Story About a Man Named Dick, and Another Dick Named Trump

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The Big Picture – By Glynn Wilson – “Listen to my story about a man named” … Not Jed, Dick. Not sure exactly why this popped into my head on Sunday morning. Maybe because I’ve been immersed in Southern music for the past few months, hanging out down the street from Nashville, Tennessee in Muscle…

Elon Musk Security Breach Must Be Stopped

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It’s not clear who that might be now that he has the power of the presidency, complete with Supreme Court Immunity, and a guaranteed pardon for any crimes he commits with this massive breach of privacy and imminent threat to national security – By Glynn Wilson – MUSCLE SHOALS, Ala. – Well folks, it was…

Does Southern Hospitality Still Exist?

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What about Christian charity? – “You can’t go back home to your family, back home to your childhood … back home to a young man’s dreams of glory and of fame … back home to places in the country, back home to the old forms and systems of things which once seemed everlasting, but which…

I Think Critically, Therefore I Am An Outcast in Red MAGA Land

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“Do not take what I say as if I were merely playing, for you see the subject of our discussion — and on what subject should even a man of slight intelligence be more serious? Namely, what kind of life should one live … the unexamined life is not worth living.” – Socrates Sunday Reader…

E.B. White on Henry David Thoreau: A Slight Sound at Evening

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Editor’s Note: The sun is shining on the morning of Tuesday, Dec. 31, 2024, as we get ready to pass through the vortex of a new calendar year. In our never-ending cycle of life in the Milky Way galaxy, Earth is circling around the Sun and will reach the perihelion – or Earth’s closest pass…

Game of Riddles: The Thing that Devours All Things

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Game of Riddles No. 9 This thing all things devours: Birds, beasts, trees, flowers; Gnaws iron, bites steel; Grinds hard stones to meal; Slays king, ruins town, And beats high mountain down. The Big Picture – By Glynn Wilson – In chapter five of J.R.R. Tolkien’s book The Hobbit, and in the first of the…

Ignorance is Bliss: The Word of the Year is Brain Rot

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The Big Picture – By Glynn Wilson – BIRMINGHAM, Ala. – If we had only known that ignorance really was bliss, that human stupidity was the ultimate goal in life, that to be “woke” was not just a bad thing but the worst thing a person could strive to be, we could have saved ourselves…

Resistance May or May Not Be Futile: With a Little Help From Our Friends

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The Big Picture – By Glynn Wilson – BIRMINGHAM, Ala. – Resistance may be futile. Unless you live in California. Apparently, the phrase “resistance is futile” appeared the first time on TV in a 1967 “Doctor Who” episode called “Tomb of the Cybermen.” In Star Trek’s “First Contact,” the voice of the Borg, spoken by…

The News Business is Dead, and So Too Democracy

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Live with that if you can – “In absolute government, the King is law.” – Thomas Paine The Big Picture – By Glynn Wilson – BIRMINGHAM, Ala. – The news business is dead. Just ask The Washington Post: The latest news? Not right now, thanks. Long live the news writers who braved to tell it…

Taps for American Democracy at Gettysburg

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The Big Picture – By Glynn Wilson – BIRMINGHAM, Ala. – It makes me a little sad that I could not be there at Gettysburg this year for the 161st anniversary of a legendary two minute speech that hinted at the end of fighting during the Civil War and began to move the United States…

Putin Sees America Hurtling to Disaster, With Trump at the Wheel

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The Big Picture – By Glynn Wilson – It should come as no surprise that the news of Donald Trump’s election again was greeted with glee in Moscow. Russian dictator president Vladimir Putin sent his congratulations to Trump after the news was announced, but not for the reasons you may imagine. According to Russian journalist…

Throw the Bums Out: Choose the Blue Team

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The Big Picture – By Glynn Wilson – JONESBORO, Ark. – Covering politics for the past 44 years, for the past decade mostly in Washington, D.C., I’ve seen some crazy, outrageous things in my time. But Republican Congressman Rick Crawford’s federal lawsuit for a pay raise and back pay may just take the cake. After…