In today’s world, we need some distractions from it in order to stay sane. Here are a few videos I think are well worth your time. They are fun, informative, and might make you smile.
Tag: history Page 1 of 5
In eighth grade in New York State, my Social Studies class had one joint assignment. The entire class had to first memorize the Preamble to the U.S. Constitution. Then, on the appointed day of the assignment, each student walked up to the chalkboard and wrote a word or erased a word and placed the correct one in. We could continue as long as we wished until we decided together we were finished.
We’ve been on a terrible timeline since the end of 2016. If we are going to be forced to live with this shitshow, I think it should start off with a bang to make me smile. Here is my proposal on how to start 2025 and survive the next four years.
I have come to enjoy audio books over the past few years. I still prefer a good book in my hands, but there is a place for audio and, if the narrator is a good one, it makes you enjoy the subject so much more.
On May 17, I sat down in the middle of the night to record my thoughts on the state of the local paper, the Scottsbluff Star-Herald, and share a little bit what it was like to work there.
Over the past few months, I’ve been thinking about a book I read a while back, “They Thought They Were Free: The Germans, 1933-45.” There is an excerpt I thought I would share.
If you’re not familiar with the book, August Heckscher, the chief writer of editorials of the New York Herald Tribune, wrote the book “suggests how easy it is for human beings in any society to fall prey to a dynamic political movement, provided their lives are sufficiently insecure, frustrated or empty.”
For the past few years, I’ve been toying with the idea of creating a podcast about history, particularly, the history of western Nebraska. The biggest factor holding me back was whether I should do it alone and whether my mental health issues would allow for such a committment. From 2020 to 2021, I really wasn’t in a place where I could do much of anything. I was functioning on the most basic of levels and could barely do anything except go to work and sleep.
Throughout the course of 2022, this all changed. I haven’t spoken much about what I did in 2022 for my mental health and how I worked on my PTSD, but I made significant changes and progress in that area, which I will, eventually, write about.
Today, however, I am pleased to announce the launch of a new podcast, Storytelling on the Plains. My friend, Conner, and I have been working for several months on our plan, creating a story list, researching, writing, and recording. Our first podcast went live yesterday.
Photo by Shawn Miller/Library of Congress.
Until last Thursday, I didn’t know Lizzo existed. Until last week, I didn’t know President James Madison owned a crystal flute. I did know, however, people will get riled up over the dumbest shit on the planet.
The inside of the Buddhist shrine at the Japanese Hall in Gering.
For most of my time working at the Scottsbluff Star-Herald newspaper, I didn’t have much of a fear about what would happen to my stories once I turned them in. The rule goes “the editor can, and sometimes will, change your story.”