Why Does Government Exist?

Today we are going to embark on a journey into expanding our understanding of how the government of the United States actually works. The net we will cast in achieving this understanding will be both wide and deep. In addition to examining the structure and functions of the government, as well as political parties and…

Sphere and Longing in Danville Episode Twenty Eight

As Milo dangled from the rock face, surrounded by blackness and the faint glow of the Decapodians, a sudden thought occurred to him. That was my favourite grappling hook. No sooner had this realization occurred to Milo, than a voice a called out from somewhere overhead. “Watch out!”Milo had just enough time to register that…

The Origin of the Universe

Astronomers tell us that in the beginning there was no need for geology because there were no rocks and minerals. They tell us that there was nothing. Where were all the stars and planets that we see in the night sky? The answer to this question depends on who you ask. The Belgian astronomer George…

The Ultimate Free Lunch

              We live in a golden age of astronomy. Unprecedented discoveries are being made by powerful and sophisticated instruments, such as the Hubble Space Telescope, on a regular basis. These discoveries are routinely reported in the news. The word “cosmos” means the universe, all that there is. More specifically, it refers to the universe…

The World of Infectious Diseases

            For most people Ebola was a distant word. It was barely spoken of, and perhaps to some, it was totally unknown. It was a virus that people in rural Africa dealt with, not Americans, Canadians or Europeans. However, during the Ebola outbreak of 2014, the unthinkable happened. Ebola crossed oceans and eventually made it…

The Question of Questions

              The evolutionary origins and earliest history of modern humans are fundamental questions of human life. The Victorian biologist Thomas Huxley called the riddle of human evolution, “the question of questions.” As early as 1863, Huxley began to draw attention to the close anatomical relationships that exist between humans and modern apes. In the…

18th Century Slave Rebellions

            Heavily outnumbered by their coerced and systematically brutalized black workforce, the slave owners of South Carolina had long dreaded the possibility of a slave revolt. In 1739, their nightmare came to pass. In September of that year, approximately eighty slaves under the leadership of a man named Jemmy carved a path of bloodshed southward…

Sleeping with the Enemy

            In the summer of 1732, two enslaved women ran away together. They fled the South Carolina plantation that belonged to their owner, James Searles. They had brought with them a child so young, than one of the slaves, a woman named Delia, was still nursing the baby at her breast. Delia’s English was poor…

The Plantation Revolution

            In December, 1752, Thomas Thistlewood, a white overseer on the island of Jamaica, caught one of his slaves, a man named Congo Sam, in the act of attempting to run away. When Thistlewood challenged him, Congo Sam drew a machete and ran at him, shouting, “I will kill you! I will kill you!” Thistlewood…

Quakers, Puritans and Abolition

In 1694, a Boston land owner named John Saffin hired out one of his slaves to a hard charging livestock farmer named Thomas Shepherd. The term of the loan was seven years.  Saffin hoped that this would be long enough to break the will of his most proud, insolent and domineering slave and oblige him…