Academics & The Arts Articles

Article / Updated 06-24-2022

On July 20, 1969, the whole world stared into their television sets and watched blurry, flickering, black and white images as Apollo 11’s lunar excursion module, nicknamed “The Eagle,” descended from orbiting around the moon and touched down on the Sea of Tranquility. In 1960, deep in the heart of the Cold War with the Soviet Union, President John F. Kennedy upped the stakes in the “space race” between the two superpowers by proclaiming that the U.S. would land a man on the moon “before this decade is out.” Apollo 11 managed to pull it off with just four months to spare. It was truly the technological achievement of the century, and perhaps the greatest milestone in the annals of mankind. And yet, the day after astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin left the first human footprints on another world, there were those who didn’t believe it was possible. One woman interviewed by Newsweek proclaimed that she didn’t believe it because she didn’t think her TV set could pick up a transmission from the moon. A rumor began to spread across the countryside: Maybe the moon landings had been staged. Claims of phony moon landing Various claims have been made over the last three decades about ways in which the moon landings may have been faked, and why. Some of the more common ones include: NASA’s first manned test flight of the Apollo space capsule and Saturn-series rocket resulted in a tragic fire that killed astronauts Gus Grissom, Ed White, and Roger Chaffee. In a test on January 27, 1967, fire broke out in the oxygen-rich cockpit, and the three men died within 17 seconds. The claim goes that the fire set the program back so badly that the moon landings had to be completely or partially fabricated in order to make it look like the U.S. had achieved its goal on time. Some have claimed that the Van Allen radiation belts that surround the earth were far too deadly to allow Apollo spacecraft to pass through without killing the astronauts inside. Most scientists (including their discoverer Dr. James Van Allen) reject this claim, because radiation poisoning is dependent upon the amount of time a person is exposed, and Apollo astronauts passed through too quickly to have received a dangerous dose. Conspiracists claim that the astronauts were launched into low Earth orbit, and that the moon landing was videotaped in a studio. Then, after the appropriate amount of time, the orbiting Apollo spacecraft splashed down, all on international television. According to conspiracists, Stanley Kubrick, hot on the heels of directing the 1968 film 2001: A Space Odyssey, which contained the first realistic and convincing special effects depicting spaceflight ever put on film, was brought from England to direct the Apollo 11 telecast. Anyone who knows anything about the famously temperamental and perfectionist director knows how impractical this claim is. Some claim that special effects were created by 2001 effects artist Douglas Trumbull in a studio in Huntsville, Alabama, home of NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center. A variation on the claim is that only some of the six successful moon landings were faked, while NASA had extra time to work on its faulty technology. Apollo 13’s almost fatal accident was staged in order to refocus a bored public on NASA’s need for greater funding. And Apollo 17, the final mission to the moon, was the only authentic trip, because it had a civilian crew member who couldn’t be threatened or bought off. ​​The 1978 film Capricorn One added fuel to the hoax claims, by telling a fictional story of NASA faking a landing on Mars, while filming the events in a studio — using spacecraft virtually identical to the Apollo missions. The International Flat Earth Society, as their name makes clear, believed (and still does) that Earth isn’t round, but flat as a pancake. That being the case, as far as they were concerned, the moon landings could be nothing but a hoax. The evidence abounds There’s too much evidence and far too many participants in NASA’s Apollo program to convince the overwhelming majority of people that the moon landings were anything but authentic. The Apollo missions involved $30 billion in federal dollars and 400,000 employees, with nary a squealer in the bunch. That hasn’t prevented a small cottage industry of authors from crying “hoax.” The 842 pounds of lunar rocks returned to Earth by Apollo astronauts over the course of six missions isn’t proof to them. Conspiracists claim unmanned NASA missions brought the rocks back to Earth before Apollo 11 ever launched, or they were simply cooked up artificially in a high-temperature kiln. In spite of piles of photographic and physical evidence, this conspiracy theory hangs on, largely promoted by late author Bill Kaysing. He was a librarian at Rocketdyne, an early NASA supplier, and claimed (without proof) that the space agency never had the expertise needed to actually land men on the moon. He further alleged that the Apollo 1 astronauts (and later the Challenger Space Shuttle crew) were murdered because they were about to reveal the “truth” about NASA. Kaysing claimed that the astronauts were actually in the Nevada desert putting on the “moonwalk show” during the day, and hanging out with strippers and Las Vegas showgirls at night — requiring years of psychological therapy before they could get over the guilt of duping the public. Amateur filmmaker Bart Sibrel has taken a more confrontational approach to the issue. In 2002, he accosted Buzz Aldrin in front of a Beverly Hills hotel, demanding answers to his questions about the so-called moon landing “hoax,” calling the astronaut a “coward, a liar, and a thief.” Aldrin reacted in a less than Socratic method over the controversy and punched Sibrel right in the kisser. Other Apollo astronauts have characterized Sibrel as a “stalker.” Profound effects on moon walkers The first time men from Earth stepped onto a new world had a profound effect on Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin, and both men grappled long and hard with their public and private reactions to an event that the whole world was watching. There are two little-known items about Aldrin, in particular. Professional atheist Madalyn Murray O’Hair sued NASA for violating church/ state separation by allowing government-employed astronauts to read from the book of Genesis during Apollo 8’s moon-orbiting mission in 1968. So, on his own, Aldrin (a Presbyterian) privately gave himself Communion when Apollo 11’s Eagle landed. Aldrin is also a Freemason, and he carried a special document proclaiming the moon as being under the jurisdiction of the Grand Lodge of Texas of Free and Accepted Masons, which means the Masons control not just the world, but the moon!

Article / Updated 06-24-2022

In a landmark decision on June 24, 2022, the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade. The justices ruled 6-3, eliminating a woman's constitutional right to abortion after nearly 50 years. About half of the states in the U.S. are poised to ban or severely restrict abortion following the Supreme Court ruling, which was expected because of a leaked draft of the court's decision in the related case Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization. News outlet Politico obtained the draft on May 2, 2022. The history of Roe v. Wade Roe versus Wade, better known as Roe v. Wade, is the 1973 U.S. Supreme Court decision that legalized abortion within the first two months of pregnancy. Up until then, individual state laws regulated abortions, thereby forcing women to illegal clinics or untrained practitioners. The lack of proper medical supervision in these situations was dangerous for the women. The roots of this case lie in Dallas, Texas, in 1969. At the time, obtaining or attempting an abortion was illegal in Texas, except in cases where the woman could die. Twenty-one-year-old Norma McCorvey was single and pregnant. Thinking that abortions were legal in cases of rape and incest, she tried to get an abortion by falsely claiming she was raped. But because there was no police report to prove it, she sought the alternative, an illegal abortion. Once again, her efforts failed — police had shut down the illegal clinic. Norma's next step was to find a lawyer to sue for the right to get an abortion. Two young attorneys named Sarah Weddington and Linda Coffee, dedicated to women's advocacy, took Norma's case and dubbed their plaintiff "Jane Roe" to protect her identity. On March 3, 1970, Coffee filed a complaint, Roe v. Wade (later amended to a class-action suit), at the Dallas federal district courthouse, suing the State of Texas over the constitutionality over its abortion laws. Henry Wade was the defending district attorney. Roe won the case when the district court decided that the Texas laws were vague and infringed on the Ninth and Fourteenth Amendments of the U.S. Constitution. The Ninth Amendment protects citizens' rights not listed in other parts of the Constitution, including the right to privacy. Norma's attorneys argued that this extended to a woman's right to decide to bear children or not. The Fourteenth Amendment ensures that no state can abridge a citizen's fundamental rights without due process. The case was appealed and landed in the U.S. Supreme Court. On January 22, 1973, the Court handed down its decision in favor of Roe, declaring: [The] right to privacy, whether it be founded in the Fourteenth Amendment's concept of personal liberty and restrictions upon state action, as we feel it is, or, as the district court determined, in the Ninth Amendment's reservation of rights to the people, is broad enough to encompass a woman's decision whether or not to terminate her pregnancy."[ The Supreme Court ruling didn't come in time for Norma McCorvey to have an abortion. She delivered a child even before the district court ruled in her favor in 1970; that child was immediately adopted. Roe v. Wade remains as polarizing as ever. Right-to-privacy proponents, anti-abortionists, religious groups, and women's rights advocates are just some of the organizations involved in this heated socio-political issue.

Article / Updated 06-24-2022

The Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade on June 24, 2022, ending nearly 50 years of a woman's constitutional right to abortion. The decision allows individual states the ability to set their own abortion laws, banning or restricting the procedure as they see fit. The nation was expecting the landmark decision due to a leaked draft of the Supreme Court's deliberations in the related case Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization. The leaked document, obtained by news outlet Politico on May 3, 2022, indicated the court's plans to overturn Roe v. Wade. At the time of the leak, about 50 states were poised to ban or severely restrict abortion, following the expected ruling. The history of Roe v. Wade Before the court's decision in 2022, Roe v. Wade had been the litmus test for confirmation to the U.S. Supreme Court bench. No judge who came out openly against Roe v. Wade was likely to be confirmed. In the 1973 case, the Supreme Court ruled 7–2 that women have the right to an abortion, at least during the first trimester of pregnancy. The court characterized abortion as a “fundamental” constitutional right, which means that any law aiming to restrict it is subject to the standard of strict scrutiny. In Planned Parenthood v. Casey (1982), the high court modified Roe by giving the state the right to regulate an abortion, even in the first trimester, as long as that regulation doesn’t pose an “undue burden” on the woman’s fundamental right to an abortion. One such “undue burden” identified in Casey was any requirement for the woman to notify her husband. A Texas law that placed certain restrictions on abortion clinics in the state was struck down by the Supreme Court, in a 5–3 vote, as placing an “undue burden” on abortion rights in Whole Woman’s Health v. Hellerstedt (2016). In Stormans Inc. v. Wiesman (2016), a five-justice majority on the court refused to hear a challenge to a Washington state law making it illegal for pharmacists to refuse to dispense contraceptive drugs. In a dissent, Justice Samuel Alito, joined by Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Clarence Thomas, wrote: “This case is an ominous sign … If this is a sign of how religious liberty claims will be treated in the years ahead, those who value religious freedom have cause for great concern.”

Article / Updated 06-24-2022

The Roswell Incident is the most famous UFO story on record and is the cornerstone of an alleged government conspiracy to hide alien visits from the world. The initial discovery of a suspected UFO crash site in 1947 played out over a three-day period, then almost completely vanished from view for 30 years, before being resurrected in the 1970s by UFO researchers. The biggest problem facing anyone who steps into the Roswell/UFO arena is telling truth from fiction. For every account of the event, someone debunks it. For every so-called fact, there’s a dispute over it, and even eyewitness accounts and deathbed confessions can’t be trusted. And, according to most dedicated ufologists of course, nothing officially released by the government can be trusted at all. Nevertheless, this article covers what’s generally known or alleged and what can be verified — or at least generally agreed on. Unidentified debris discovered In 1947, just one month after pilot Kenneth Arnold’s publicized sighting of a UFO over Washington State, a curious report came out of the little town of Roswell, New Mexico. On July 4 (Independence Day) that year, a violent thunderstorm swept through the area. The next morning, a sheep rancher named Mac Brazel, who was employed at the J. B. Foster ranch, set out across the property to look for damage from the storm. What he found was unusual debris that he couldn’t readily identify, stretched out across a large area. After showing the debris to a neighbor, Brazel took some of the pieces into Roswell, about 70 miles away, and presented them to the local authorities, wondering if it might be wreckage of one of the flying saucers recently reported in the news. (It may have helped motivate him that the press was offering a $3,000 reward for physical evidence of a flying saucer.) Brazel was interviewed by a local radio station, whose reporter contacted the 509th Bomb Group of the 8th Air Force at nearby Roswell Army Air Field for a comment. The base sent Intelligence Officer Jesse Marcel into town and then to the Foster ranch to investigate. Marcel gathered up some of the pieces and took them home for the evening, where he showed some of them to his family. The next morning, he took the debris to the base, and Colonel William “Butch” Blanchard ordered the debris site cordoned off so it could be recovered, then issued a press release about the discovery. Newspapers and network radio reports appeared quickly, announcing that the Air Force captured a flying disc, but by the next day, a correction was issued changing the story to say that the debris came from a weather balloon. A press conference was held, and debris was displayed that seemed to verify that what was recovered was, in fact, a large rubber balloon and other pieces covered in silver foil. Brazel himself was dismayed over the publicity. He’d found pieces of weather balloons on the ranch in the past, but this find had unusual composition. Still, the rancher never claimed that what he found was metal. When it was all collected, the wreckage consisted of foil, rubber, wooden sticks, paper, and tape. Over a period of three days, the remaining debris was collected and flown to the 8th Air Force Headquarters in Ft. Worth, Texas, where it was examined. On July 9, the Air Force issued a press release from Ft. Worth identifying the wreckage as a high altitude balloon carrying a radar target made of wood and reflective aluminum. And within several weeks of the incident, the whole event slipped from the public memory for 30 years. Roswell resurrected In 1978, UFO researcher Stanton Friedman was contacted by retired intelligence officer Jesse Marcel, and at this point, the Roswell story was resurrected and it becomes difficult to separate fact, fiction, faulty memory, and fraud. Following, are a sample of some of events, people, and recollections from the Roswell incident. Keep in mind, these examples have only come forth since 1978. Jesse Marcel claimed the wreckage he collected was part of a flying disc and not a balloon. The foil-like material was unlike anything he’d ever seen before, and there were strips of purple tape that contained symbols that looked like either flowers or hieroglyphics. He said that photographs of himself posing with balloon debris were taken after the real pieces were replaced with balloon parts by superior officers. Marcel, however, couldn’t remember the month or year of the events. Frank Kaufman claimed to have been a radar specialist at White Sands Proving Grounds. He stated that he was ordered to the White Sands facility where he tracked incoming UFOs the night of the fabled crash. He was then sent to Roswell, where he witnessed the retrieval of at least one alien occupant — except that Kaufman was really nothing but a civilian clerk in the Roswell Army Air Base personnel office. And there was no radar at White Sands. After his death in 2001, analysis of letters, memos, and other documents show that Kaufman really was an expert at forgery, records falsification, and spectacular lying, but not radar. Glenn Dennis was a local funeral director in Roswell and claimed he’d been contacted by the air base’s “mortuary officer” about caskets and the proper treatment of bodies recovered from the desert. Later, he “stumbled” into an autopsy being performed on one of three alien corpses. He further claimed that a nurse at the Roswell air base named Naomi Maria Selff (or Naomi Sipes — it varied) told him details of the top-secret operation and gave him sketches of the aliens. Dennis said the nurse suddenly disappeared, but there’s no record of any such nurse ever having worked at the base or living in Roswell. His story had enough inconsistencies that he was eventually labeled a fraud by many UFO researchers. Over and over again, so-called Roswell witnesses have been exposed in major inconsistencies or outright lies. So, what could the motive for all these, and literally a hundred others, have been to make these tales up? Remember: Aliens aren’t just big business in Roswell — they’re the town’s number-one source of income. There are no less than three UFO museums in the town of only 50,000 people. True believers flock to Roswell, and it has become a UFO mecca. They sell T-shirts, dolls, coffee mugs, inflatable balloons, tours of the competing crash sites, and literally anything else you can think of — raking in millions of dollars in annual revenue to the town. The military base has been closed, there’s no interstate close by, and there’s not a lot of economic opportunities for the town of 45,000. Aliens are very big business. Tracking the government’s paper trail UFO researchers and debunkers have both been noisy attack dogs and have made ceaseless requests for reports to be declassified and released to the public under the Freedom of Information (FOI) Act. A cataclysmic, earth-shaking event like capturing a real flying saucer and its alien occupants would change the course of civilization. At the very least, a military culture that’s governed by a strict code of procedures and conduct would document such an event with a mountain of paper, photographs, and other physical evidence. Every step in the investigation of alien conduct would be painstakingly chronicled, if for no other reason than to cover the backsides of career officers terrified of making a misstep and bringing down the wrath of angry superiors on them, or worse, the wrath of an angry invading fleet of a superior intergalactic force. Out of literally thousands of pages of FOI-released documents, there isn’t even the hint of evidence of any such authentic events. In 1995, the General Accounting Office (GAO), at the request of New Mexico congressman Steve Schiff, conducted a search of all documents relating to the Roswell Army Air Base and the events of July 1947. As a result of the GAO investigation, the Air Force was directed to make an internal investigation and to report its findings. Two Air Force reports The Air Force released reports about two formerly top-secret programs: 1994’s The Roswell Report: Fact Vs. Fiction in the New Mexico Desert, identified a program called Project Mogul; and 1997’s The Roswell Report: Case Closed described Operation High Dive. Project Mogul: This program was designed to detect Soviet nuclear bomb tests by using very high altitude balloons loaded with sensitive microphones and reflective boxes that could be tracked by radar. Several balloons were clustered together for extra support in case some broke, as well as to assure a constant, standard altitude position. A string of radar targets was tied to the end of the balloon clusters like a long kite tail. The targets were needed to track the experiment because the rubber balloons themselves were invisible to radar. The target boxes were mass-produced, under contract by a toy manufacturer, out of special foil, balsa wood, and tape. The tape, it was claimed, was left over from a line of holiday items and contained gold flowerlike patterns on a purple background, which accounted for the claims that the so-called saucer debris had hieroglyphics on it.The reason for the high security involved in recovering Mogul’s debris in Roswell was that it was a closely guarded, top-secret program, whose complete details weren’t even known by the civilian scientists involved in developing its technology. Likewise, the Roswell Air Base personnel would’ve had no idea what they were looking at. The balloon flights were conducted between 1947 and 1948, and based on the physical description, these may very well have been the objects spotted by pilot Kenneth Arnold the week before the Roswell Incident. The Soviets really did set off their first nuclear blast in 1949, based on secrets stolen from the U.S. program (see the sidebar “The Schulgen Memo” earlier in this chapter). Operation High Dive: This is a little stranger, but the Air Force alleges that this project was the genesis of claims of seeing military personnel recovering bodies from the desert. It was a top-secret program carried out in the 1950s to test extremely high altitude human parachute jumps, primarily in case U2 surveillance plane pilots had to bail out from 70,000 feet or higher. The tests themselves were done on early crash test dummies in an effort to make design changes in parachutes that prevented uncontrolled and fatal spinning. The Air Force believes that witnesses saw these strange-looking dummies being collected in the desert by military crews, who kept the public away because of the secret nature of the experiments (the Air Force didn’t want word to get out to the Russians that they had spy planes that flew so high). Predictably, the Air Force and the GAO’s reports, along with a subsequent CIA investigation and report, all raised new accusations of a government coverup. Nevertheless, the overwhelming majority of UFO researchers have begrudgingly accepted that the Roswell Incident is, in all probability, nothing more than a colossal hoax.

Article / Updated 06-24-2022

Every couple of years or so, we earthlings are treated to the beauty of a total lunar eclipse. The moon appears red as it passes into Earth's shadow, and for some, this elicits the wonder of our orbiting celestial friend and its significance to world culture. A lunar eclipse is the cousin to a solar eclipse, albeit much less dramatic. Still, it makes for a great experience. As the full moon passes into the earth’s shadow, the moon can appear to darken and then change color, turning a dark red. The moon looks red because the sun’s light gets bent (refracted) through the earth’s atmosphere. The red light gets bent the most, so that’s the light that illuminates the moon’s surface during a lunar eclipse. You could think of it as the light from every sunrise and sunset on Earth lighting up the moon’s surface! For more mind-bending astronomy facts about the moon and other celestial bodies, check out Astronomy For Dummies. Stargazing a lunar eclipse Total lunar eclipses aren’t very common. But two things make them easier to observe than solar eclipses: When a lunar eclipse happens, it’s often visible from anywhere on the night side of the earth. Lunar eclipses are safe to observe with your eyes, binoculars and telescopes. Want to learn how to best explore the distant wonders of the night sky? Stargazing For Dummies offers readers a detailed starter guide for the future stargazer. The moon in world culture Beyond its striking appearance during a total lunar eclipse, check out this interesting information about the moon's significance in world culture. The moon in classical music: From Beethoven to Chopin Did you know classical music has a few sub-genres dedicated entirely to capturing the moon’s natural beauty and emotive characteristics? For example, you’ve likely heard of Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata or, perhaps, Debussy’s Clair de lune. These timeless pieces of music take their listeners through a moonlight-draped journey full of evocative passages, foreboding moments and somewhat mysterious tones — all inspired by that lonely white marble above. Chopin’s Nocturnes are another great example. As their name suggests, these are compositions centered entirely around the moon, nighttime, and dreaming. For more on classical music and its many timeless compositions, check out Classical Music For Dummies. The Moon in astrology: Emotions, instincts and habits Of course, no discussion about the moon would be complete without mentioning its significance in Western astrology. And yes — there’s more to it than the 12 zodiac signs. The moon's nodes, for example, refer to where its path crosses the ecliptic, which is the apparent path of the sun among the constellations over the course of a year. The north or ascending node marks the place where the moon crosses from south to north, seemingly ascending through the sky. The south, or descending node marks where the moon crosses from north to south, descending through the sky. What does this mean for astrologers? Without getting into the nitty gritty details, the moon is often associated with the “emotional self” in our astrological charts, and can represent the mysterious, hidden, and spiritual self in the tarot. To learn more about the moon’s significance in Western astrology, check out Astrology For Dummies.

Article / Updated 06-23-2022

The American Revolution has had enormous effects on the development of world history since that time. We can learn a lot from exploring other events that happened following the American Revolution and from considering the reasons that this revolution, unlike many others, was a successful endeavor. It was a revolution like no other, “a revolution,” in the words of the 18th century British statesman Edmund Burke, “made not by chopping and changing of power in any of the existing states (nations), but by the appearance of a new state, of a new species, in a new part of the globe.” How big was the American Revolution? Overstating the effects of the American Revolution on world history would be difficult. It’s been estimated, for example, that more than half of the countries belonging to the United Nations in 2019 could trace their beginnings back to documents proclaiming their legitimacy as sovereign states and modeled on or inspired by America’s Declaration of Independence. In fact, it could be argued that just a single Revolutionary War battle in the fall of 1777 in eastern New York led to a French king having his head cut off; the end of the Spanish Empire in the New World; doubling the size of the United States; firmly establishing Canada as a British colony; and hastening the settlement of Australia. That may seem a bit of stretch, but consider this: In September and October 1777, American forces defeated a British army near Saratoga. The stunning victory, and surrender of the entire British force, helped convince French King Louis XVI to throw France’s formidable military behind the American cause. That contributed greatly to America’s military victory over the British in the Revolutionary War. America’s subsequent creation of a democratic republic provided a vivid example to the French of how effective an uprising against a tyrannical government might be. French revolutionaries used the U.S. Declaration of Independence as a template for drafting the Declaration of the Rights of Man and the Citizen in 1789. One of the casualties in the French Revolution that followed was Louis XVI — the same monarch who had helped America win its revolution. Inspired by the U.S. and French revolutions and led by Simón Bolívar — the Venezuelan who became known as the George Washington of Latin America — much of Spain’s colonial empire in Latin America revolted in the first three decades of the 19th century. By 1830, what are now the nations of Venezuela, Mexico, Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Ecuador, Paraguay, Uruguay, and Peru had declared independence. In addition, the former Portuguese colony of Brazil and French colony of Saint-Domingue (now Haiti) had likewise successfully rebelled. The loss of Saint-Domingue to a rebellion led by former slave Toussaint Louverture so irritated the French dictator Napoleon that he launched a major assault to retake the island. That ended in disastrous defeat for the French. The debacle helped persuade Napoleon to forget about a French Empire in the Americas. And that decision spurred France in 1803 to sell America 828,000 square miles of what became known as the Louisiana Purchase, for $15 million (about $335 million in 2019.) That doubled the size of the United States. After the U.S. victory in the Revolutionary War, as many as 80,000 Americans who had been loyal to the British fled to Canada. That had a radical demographic effect on the sparsely populated country, most of whose non-native inhabitants up to that time were of French descent. The influx of the loyalist Americans helped solidify Britain’s cultural and political hold on Canada. Prior to the Revolutionary War, America had served as a dumping ground for Britain’s unwanted, which included a vast number of those convicted of various crimes. Faced with the post-war problem of where to send its excess convicts, Britain settled on its almost-empty colony of Australia. Between 1788 and 1868, an estimated 165,000 prisoners were transported to the Down Under continent. Sure, lots of other elements are involved in each of these events that helped bring them about and influenced their outcomes. But there is no denying the American Revolution played a significant role in all of them. What kind of revolution was it? Through most of the 20th century and into the 21st, a continual hot topic of debate among historians has been whether the American Revolution was a conservative or radical affair. The conservative-event camp argues that the real aim of the Founding Fathers was a revolution in a literal sense: a 360-degree return to the rights, liberties and economic system that America had lived under during most of the 17th and first half of the 18th centuries. That was before the British government began looking for ways to raise revenues from its American colonies and started enforcing laws that benefited the mother country at the inconvenience of the colonists. America’s leaders, the conservative-revolution camp contends, had nothing new or particularly daring in mind in terms of a new form of government. They mostly just wanted the British to stop changing things. The proof of that, the argument goes, is that even after the Constitution was written and the new government framework it contained was established, the same people were still in charge. Slavery continued; women remained legally inferior; and voting was still largely limited to adult males who owned something of value. But, the radical camp counters, the conservative revolution argument ignores the fact that an entirely new form of government resulted. The Founding Fathers came up with a fundamentally different view of the relationship between government and people. Under monarchies or autocracies, government serves the purposes of the one or the few, and operates through the labor and sacrifices of the many. In the model created by the Constitution, the government functions through the will of the people it serves, as expressed by the actions of the representatives they elect. True, the radical camp concedes, the Founding Fathers ignored or sidestepped the inherent hypocrisy of a nation founded on lofty ideals of liberty, yet allowed slavery and treated half the populace as second-class citizens. But they point out that the soundness of the governmental system the founders created has allowed it to gradually work to redress those wrongs: The 13th Amendment to the Constitution, for example, ended slavery in 1865; the 19th gave women the right to vote in 1920. These changes weren’t reliant on the desires of individual rulers or even the whims of popular opinion. They came about as the result of Americans operating under a system, which when it was created, was a radical departure from governments of the time. In the end, it may be futile to attempt to accurately categorize the American Revolution. A revolution is a massive upheaval, undertaken by a mass of human beings with different motives, aspirations — and levels of enthusiasm. For example, John Hancock was a wealthy merchant; George R.T. Hewes, a poor shoemaker. Hancock presided over the group that drafted the Declaration of Independence; Hewes helped dump tea in Boston Harbor. Neither had anything to gain directly from rebellion. But both rebelled and risked their lives in doing so. Was Hancock a conservative hoping to go back to the good old days, and Hewes a radical pining for a new way of doing things? I don’t know, and I don’t think it matters. Assigning generalized labels to their reasons may be an interesting academic exercise, but not a whole lot more. Why did the American Revolution succeed? As the citizens of scores of other countries around the world can attest, not every revolution works equally well. England underwent two revolutions in the 17th century. One resulted in the dictatorship of Oliver Cromwell; the other substituted one monarch for another. The French Revolution gave France — and the rest of the world — Napoleon. The Russian Revolution transformed the government from a corrupt and despotic regime to a corrupt and totalitarian regime. But the American Revolution, however bumpy its path, succeeded. One reason was roots. Americans mostly derived their ideas about government from Britain, whose people had long wrestled with trying to balance the authority of the state with the liberty of the individual. By the time shots were fired at Lexington, many, if not most, Americans had also enjoyed decades of representative democracy, at least at the local level. Self-government was not a new experience. And unlike many other nations, America had escaped dominance by a single religious organization or secular interest group. Then there was luck. America abounded in natural and economic resources. Life at the time of the revolution was generally pretty good in the colonies. The desperation faced by starving or war-torn nations on the verge of rebellion was absent and thus so was the desperate need to grab onto the first Cromwell or Napoleon to come along and offer a quick fix. Finally, Americans settled on three key aspects to the system that helped ensure the revolution could mature. One was the system of checks and balances among the three branches of government — what the historian Richard Hofstadter termed “a harmonious system of mutual frustration.” While the system has certainly generated its fair share of friction, it has maintained a balance the Founding Fathers sometimes feared would be unobtainable. In 1974, for example, President Richard Nixon refused to release audiotapes recorded in his office to Congress, which was considering impeachment proceedings against Nixon. Nixon based his refusal on what he claimed was a “privilege” accorded to the executive branch. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in favor of Congress. About two weeks after the court’s decision, the president resigned. The second key aspect of the America system that differentiated it from those of other revolutions was the recognition that the rights of the minority were every bit as important as the rights of the majority. As Thomas Jefferson put it in his first Inaugural Address, “Though the will of the majority is in all cases to prevail . . . the minority possess their equal rights, which equal law must protect, and to violate (this) would be oppression.” Finally, there is the elasticity of the Constitution. The document’s framers recognized they weren’t perfect and were thus unlikely to create a perfect blueprint for running the country. In the 230 years between 1789 and 2019, a total of 27 amendments were added to the Constitution. They guaranteed rights, made changes in the process of government — and in the case of Prohibition, made one societal activity illegal and then legal again. What you can learn from the American Revolution One of the most rewarding things about the study of history is its reassuring reinforcement of the fact that nobody is now, or ever has been, perfect. It naturally follows that nothing any human has ever done has been perfect. That, as John Adams pointed out in answering letters from admirers in the first quarter of the 19th century, applied to both the Founding Fathers and their efforts. “I ought not to object to your reverence for (us),” he wrote one fan, “but to tell you a very great secret, as far as I am capable of comparing the merits of different periods, I have no reason to believe we were better than you are.” To another correspondent, Adams explained that “every measure of Congress from 1774 to 1787 inclusively, was disposed (of) with acrimony and decided by as small majorities as any question is decided these days . . . it was patched and piebald (irregular) then, as it is now, and ever will be, world without end.” So, one lesson to be learned from the American Revolution is that it’s unreasonable to expect the political descendants of the Founding Fathers to be any more infallible than they — or the fruits of their labors — were. Which raises a second lesson: The American Revolution wasn’t finished with the end of the war, or the adoption of the Constitution, or the peaceful shift of power from one political party to another. It has been followed by a series of mini-revolutions, additions to the country’s ever-changing menu of unresolved issues and unaddressed problems. The menu’s items have included the end of slavery; the preservation of the Union; the extension of suffrage and other rights to women; the establishment of a safety net of programs from Social Security to Medicare; the push for a color-blind justice system, and ongoing efforts to ensure that the scales of majority rule and minority rights remain in balance. And that leads to a third lesson, and one I touch on in the Introduction to this book: The American Revolution isn’t over. “On the contrary,” wrote Dr. Benjamin Rush, physician, signer of the Declaration of Independence and Founding Father, “nothing but the first act of the drama is closed. It remains yet to establish and perfect our new forms of government and to prepare the principles, morals, and manners of our citizens for these forms of government after they are established and brought to perfection.” Dr. Rush’s words were written in 1786. We’re still working on perfection.

Article / Updated 06-23-2022

Star parties are outdoor conventions for amateur astronomers. They set up their telescopes (some homemade and some not) in a field, and people take turns skywatching. (Be prepared to hear plenty of "Oohs" and "Ahs.") Judges choose the best homemade telescopes and equipment, earning their owners esteem and sometimes even a prize. If rain falls in the evening, partygoers may watch slide shows in a nearby hall or a big tent. Arrangements vary, but often, some attendees camp in the field; others rent inexpensive cabins or commute from nearby motels. Star parties may last for a night or two, or sometimes as long as a week. They attract a few hundred to a few thousand (yes, thousand!) telescope makers and amateur astronomers. And the larger star parties have websites with photos of previous events and details on coming attractions. Some resemble AstroFests, with exhibitors and distinguished speakers, as well as stargazing. The leading star parties in the United States include: Stellafane: This Vermont star party has been going strong since 1926. Texas Star Party: Commune with the stars on the mile-high Prude Ranch in the Lone Star State. Enchanted Skies Star Party: Head to the desert for dark sky observing near Magdalena, New Mexico, and fine speakers. Nebraska Star Party: This party boasts "a fantastic light pollution–free sweep of the summer night sky." Here are some of the leading star parties in the United Kingdom: The LAS Equinox Sky Camp: Held at Kelling Heath, Norfolk, this party bills itself as "the largest star party in the U.K." Kielder Star Camp: This twice-yearly event in the Northumberland International Dark Sky Park occurs in a forest thought to be "the darkest venue for any English star party." If you live in or plan to visit the Southern Hemisphere, check out these star parties: South Pacific Star Party: It's held near Ilford, NSW, Australia, on a property reserved for skywatching by the Astronomical Society of New South Wales. Central Star Party: Try this party on New Zealand's North Island, a bit off the beaten path. In the long run, visit at least one of these star parties, but in the meantime, you can ask at a local astronomy club meeting about a similar, although perhaps smaller, event that may be planned in your own area.

Article / Updated 06-17-2022

The justices on the Supreme Court interpret the Constitution, which affects everyone in this country. As you study constitutional law, knowing the justices and their interpretive styles helps you make sense of big decisions and predict future outcomes. Chief Justice: John G. Roberts: Born 1955, seated on the Supreme Court 2005 (appointed by President George W. Bush) Associate Justices: Clarence Thomas: Born 1948, seated on the Supreme Court 1991 (appointed by President George H. W. Bush) Stephen G. Breyer: Born 1938, seated on the Supreme Court 1994 (appointed by President Bill Clinton) Breyer is expected to retire at the end of the 2022-2023 term. Samuel Anthony Alito, Jr.: Born 1950, seated on the Supreme Court 2006 (appointed by President George W. Bush) Sonia Sotomayor: Born 1954, seated on the Supreme Court 2009 (appointed by President Barack Obama) Elena Kagan: Born 1960, seated on the Supreme Court 2010 (appointed by President Barack Obama) Neil M. Gorsuch: Born 1967, seated on the Supreme Court 2017 (appointed by President Donald Trump) Brett M. Kavanaugh: Born 1965, seated on the Supreme Court 2018 (appointed by President Donald Trump) Amy Coney Barrett: Born 1972, seated on the Supreme Court 2020 (appointed by President Donald Trump) New justice in 2022: Ketanji Brown Jackson: Born 1970 (appointed by President Joe Biden). She will replace Justice Stephen G. Breyer, who will retire at the end of the 2021-2022 term.

Article / Updated 06-15-2022

To understand the United States of America, start with the Constitution. Written over 200 years ago, when the nation was first being established out of the 13 British colonies, this document is a blueprint. Its seven sections (or articles) detail the core components of how the framers wanted the government to run the country. (See U.S. Constitution For Dummies Cheat Sheet.) Article I – The Legislative Branch. The principal mission of the legislative branch is to make laws. It is split into two different chambers – the House of Representatives and the Senate. Congress is a legislative body that holds the power to draft and pass legislation, borrow money for the nation, declare war, and raise a military. It also has the power to check and balance the other two federal branches. Article II – The Executive Branch. This branch of the government manages the day-to-day operations of government through various federal departments and agencies, such as the Department of Treasury. At the head of this branch is the nationally elected president of the United States. The president swears an oath to "faithfully execute" the responsibilities as president and to "preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States." The executive branch powers include making treaties with other nations, appointing federal judges, department heads, and ambassadors, and determining how to best run the country and military operations. Article III – The Judicial Branch. Article III outlines the powers of the federal court system. The article states that the court of last resort is the U.S. Supreme Court and that the U.S. Congress has the power to determine the size and scope of those courts below it. All judges are appointed for life unless they resign or are charged with bad behavior. Those facing charges are to be tried and judged by a jury of their peers. Article IV – The States. This article defines the relationship between the states and the federal government. The federal government guarantees a republican form of government in each state, protects the nation and the people from foreign or domestic violence, and determines how new states can join the Union. It also suggests that all the states are equal to each other and should respect each other’s laws and the judicial decisions made by other state court systems. Article V – Amendment. Future generations can amend the Constitution if the society so requires it. Both the states and Congress have the power to initiate the amendment process. Article VI – Debts, Supremacy, Oaths. Article VI determines that the U.S. Constitution, and all laws made from it, are the "supreme Law of the Land," and all officials, whether members of the state legislatures, Congress, judiciary, or the executive branch, have to swear an oath to the Constitution. Article VII – Ratification. This article details all those people who signed the Constitution, representing the original 13 states.

Cheat Sheet / Updated 06-01-2022

Biology is the study of life, from tiny bacteria to giant redwood trees to human beings. Understanding biology begins with knowing some of the basics, such as eukaryotic cell structure and common Latin and Greek roots that will help you decipher the sometimes-tough vocabulary.