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Animals, History

Calvin Coolidge’s Pet Raccoon

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First Lady Grace Coolidge and Rebecca the Raccoon. Calvin Coolidge was a good president, but as for his taste in pets, I’m not so sure: One of the best-known four-legged White House residents during the Coolidge years — a raccoon — had actually been meant to be eaten. She was sent from Mississippi to be…

America, History, Law, Liberty

Understanding America Backwards

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There’s a longstanding maxim of liberty that Americans inherited from England: ‘those things not prohibited by law are permitted.’ The burden is on the state: if there’s no express ban under law, then a person is free to act.  Since government has to enumerate restrictions if it wants to enforce them, a free society places…

Animals, Art, History, Nature

The Imagination at Work

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Long before they saw animals from faraway places, European artists imagined what they might look like, from tales they heard from others. Vincze Miklós writes about the art of the unfamiliar — See, How Europeans Imagined Exotic Animals Centuries Ago, Based on Hearsay.

History, Holiday

Happy Thanksgiving

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From the earliest European settlers to our continent, and by the efforts of several presidents and intervening generations, Thanksgiving comes to us. (Along these lines, see Nathan Raab’s When Was The Real First Thanksgiving? That Depends.) For today, here’s George Washington’s Thanksgiving Proclamation of October 3, 1789: By the President of the United States of…

History, Human Nature

Blaming the Younger Generation

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One reads now and again of unruly, uncontrolled – dare one say raucous? – young people. Consider this heartfelt lament: Furthermore, during the last thirty years customs have changed; now when young…get together, if there is not just talk about money matters, loss and gain, secrets, clothing styles, or matters of sex, there is no…

History, Religion

Happy Easter 2013

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A portion of the Urbi et Orbi Message, Easter, 2013: We too, like the women who were Jesus’ disciples, who went to the tomb and found it empty, may wonder what this event means (cf. Lk 24:4). What does it mean that Jesus is risen? It means that the love of God is stronger than…

History, Science/Nature

Happy Birthday, Copernicus

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Google celebrates Nicolaus Copernicus’s 540th birthday today with a Google Doodle illustrating the heliocentric universe: Unlike the doodle above, the one on their main search page is animated. They’ve also a link to search for Copernicus’s scientific accomplishments and investigations of the natural order.

City, History, Politics

Millard Fillmore

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I’ve no idea if Pres. Fillmore ever visited Whitewater. That’s Millard Fillmore, the political disaster: supporter of the Compromise of 1850, the Fugitive Slave Act, the Know Nothing Movement, and a thorn in Lincoln’s side during the Civil War. Simply put, Fillmore would be a hard sell to anyone looking at his record honestly. That’s…