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A Video is at the link-click, but if you have young children or grandchildren, it would be worth your while to get the book, work out how to perform it as poetry, and read it to them yourself--they'll always remember it. This is avowedly biased on the side of Rudolph Flesch's 1955 "Why Johnny Can't Read"; if you're hydrophobic/distempered about this topic, please don't bother with any flaming in the comments. This is just Dr. Seuss fandom, no fanaticism intended. Bruce Deitrick Price's "Science of Illiteracy" is in the 1st comment, for those who maintain an open mind. That damned...

Trump-hating author Stephen King clearly lives in the world of fiction because he proved on Sunday that he cannot distinguish between satire and reality. King and some of his fellow leftists thought they saw an opportunity to dunk on President Trump for a post he allegedly wrote about the World Series match-up between the Los Angeles Dodgers and the Toronto Blue Jays. Here is what Trump supposedly wrote, which had TDS clowns up in arms. No matter who wins, I will refuse to invite either baseball team to my ballroom as they are both run by highly inept officials from...

Long before mass surveillance, social credit systems, and the algorithmic manipulation of truth became part of our daily lives, Russian writers were warning us. Not with data charts or manifestos—but with novels, plays, and poems that seemed to peer through the veil of their own turbulent times and glimpse something terrifyingly familiar: our present. ...They didn’t predict flying cars or space tourism. Instead, they foresaw how totalitarian regimes would manipulate language, how the human spirit could be engineered, and how the very idea of truth could be dismantled and rebuilt at the whim of the state. ...Yet, their work is...

In another big and bold move from the new Paramount regime following the Skydance merger, the studio is in final negotiations to board Ebenezer: A Christmas Carol, with Johnny Depp set to star and Ti West on board to direct. Andrea Riseborough has also signed on, with the studio dating the film for November 13, 2026. Nathaniel Halpern penned the script with Emma Watts producing. The classic Charles Dickens story has seen its fair share of retellings over the years with its tale of an elderly miser visited by the ghost of his former business partner and the spirits of...

Bean's 'One does not simply walk into Mordor' moment became a quintessential memeNEED TO KNOW -Sean Bean opened up about starring in The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring as Boromir -Bean explained that some of his “gravitas” in his delivery of his now-iconic line “One does not simply walk into Mordor” was because he was reading his lines off a card -Bean said writer and director Peter Jackson was re-writing his monologue until the last moment Sean Bean had one of the most famous moments in the Lord of the Rings film trilogy, but it almost...

Look out, Frodo!A bright galactic nucleus with a supermassive black hole that spews out cosmic radiation is pointing straight at us. Thankfully, the object, unimaginatively dubbed “PKS 1424+240,” is located roughly 7.4 billion light-years away and likely won’t pose much of a danger. But that hasn’t stopped a group of excited astronomers from renaming it: the “Eye of Sauron,” the symbol adopted by the Dark Lord in JRR Tolkien’s epic “Lord of the Rings” trilogy. A new image of the object was recently unveiled, revealing a bright, hot center with cosmic waves spinning around it, spewing a jet of plasma...

Molly Lee is talking to me about the tales her aunt Nelle, known to the world as Harper Lee, would weave for her when she was a little girl. "She was just a great storyteller," says the 77-year-old from her home in Alabama. That's an understatement if the success of Harper Lee's Pulitzer-prize winning novel To Kill A Mockingbird is anything to go by. Since its publication in 1960, when it was an instant hit, the book has sold more than 42 million copies worldwide Based around the story of Tom Robinson, a black man falsely accused of rape, it's...

Wikipedia, a popular online encyclopedia millions of people treat as an authoritative source of information, is systemically biased against conservative, religious, and other points of view, according to the site’s co-founder, Larry Sanger.Larry Sanger, co-founder of Wikipedia and former philosophy professor, among stacks of reference books at a library in Columbus, Ohio, on March 26, 2007. Kiichiro Sato/AP PhotoSanger, 57, who now heads the Knowledge Standards Foundation, believes Wikipedia can be salvaged either by a renewed emphasis on free speech within the organization or by a grassroots campaign to make diverse viewpoints heard.Failing that, Sanger said, government intervention may be...

The Israeli military conducted strikes against Hamas in Gaza after accusing the terrorist organization of repeatedly violating its ceasefire agreement on Sunday. An Israeli military official confirmed the strikes to Fox News on Sunday, pointing to attacks by Hamas since Friday. The official says the attacks on Israeli forces all took place beyond the line behind which Israel had withdrawn under the terms of the agreement. "The terror organization Hamas carried out multiple attacks against Israeli forces beyond the yellow line. The attacks included an RPG shot at a military force, and a sniper fire against a military force," the...

We shall have no kings.

The journal iScience recently published a study showing that the share of Americans who read books for pleasure has fallen 40 percent over the last 20 years. Unfortunately, this decline has endured for generations. For example, among high school seniors in 1976, 11.5 percent did not read a single book for pleasure; by 2021, this had risen to 41 percent. It’s a similar situation in Britain. A recent survey revealed that 47 percent of adults do not read books by choice—roughly half the population of England. More worryingly, two-thirds of 16- to 24-year-olds describe themselves as “non-readers” or “lapsed” readers....

The small church of Domine Quo Vadis, which is situated on the Via Appia, at the junction with Via Ardeatina, marks the spot where, according to the apocryphal Acts of Peter, Christ met Peter as the latter was fleeing Rome. Its official name is Santa Maria delle Piante (St Mary of the Soles of the Feet)

For the best part of two centuries, Britons have been flocking to the genteel seaside town of Bournemouth. Such was its place in the national affections that the resort, with its balmy weather and elegant Edwardian architecture, became known as the retirement capital of Britain, perfect for the twilight years of the nicely spoken. Fast forward to 2025, however, and the town is in the throes of a story with a very different accent.

The sudden closure of one of the country's very first Whole Foods stores has rocked the upscale Bay Area town of Mill Valley. Residents say Amazon has abandoned the beloved neighborhood staple that defined their community for more than three decades and are furious despite there being another store a mile away. The California store first opened in 1992 and became a local institution where the town's 14,000 residents caught up in the aisles and kids grabbed snacks after school. But after a rodent infestation and roof repairs forced a temporary shutdown over the summer, locals expected the market to...

(I don't believe people who just happened to be born on any of 365 days, deserve any special notice for it, but their Mothers do. My Mother, born in 1912, gave birth to me this day in 1954. So, to indulge myself, I thought I'd pass along this comedic poem from her birth year, 1912, from a children's book.) The Rocket Book (1912) by Peter Newell. Narrated at the click-link at Librivox by Phil Chenevert. The Rocket Book by Peter Newell at Gutenberg(Twenty-one comedic illustrations) [pg] The ROCKET Book by PETER NEWELL HARPER & BROTHERS NEW YORK [pg] COPYRIGHT, 1912,...

Book publisher HarperCollins UK issued an apology Tuesday after a recent book made claims that first lady Melania Trump was introduced to her husband through convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. The publisher worked with Andrew Lownie, author of “Entitled: The Rise and Fall of the House of York,” to remove “several passages of the book that made unverified claims” about the first lady, according to a statement posted on social platform X. Trump also shared the statement on her social media. “Copies of the book that include those references are being permanently removed from distribution,” the statement reads. “HarperCollins UK...

Thankfully, people in Washington DC are finally starting to realize the full scale of the Obama surveillance system. All of the evidence and datapoints -released and yet to surface- flow in one direction. Even the professionally reluctant are starting to admit. What Obama, Biden, Comey, Crossfire Hurricane, Robert Mueller, Arctic Frost and Jack Smith were doing, was using their offices -and govt systems- to watch their opposition, spy on them, then take action based on the results. Friend of the Treehouse John Spiropoulos put together a series of videos explaining how President Obama, FBI Director James Comey and CIA Director...

Welcome to the Unraveling the Scriptures channel. Did you know that in Sodom, women dressed in garments so light and translucent that almost nothing was hidden from the eyes of those who beheld them? On nights of celebration, it was common for them to adorn their bodies with pigments made from liquid gold, creating designs that shimmerred when touched by the silvery light of the moon. With every movement, these reflections transformed the female figures into almost supernatural apparitions, a mixture of sensuality and mystery, as if they themselves were part of the cosmic spectacle unfolding above them.

Houston's George Bush Intercontinental Airport has opened new facilities for Muslim travelers and other people of faith. Bush is among the first U.S. airports to offer an ablution room, an amenity that many Muslim travelers prioritize. "It is very good to hear about the new ablution room at George Bush Intercontinental," said Fazal Bahardeen, founder and CEO of CrescentRating.com, a website focused on the worldwide market for halal travel. "Having these airport facilities is an important criterion when we rank destinations on the Mastercard-CrescentRating Global Muslim Travel Index." The group's 2023 report commends Singapore Changi Airport for best practices when...

Jan of the Windmill, by Juliana Horatia Ewing https://www.gutenberg.org/files/5601/5601-h/5601-h.htm JAN OF THE WINDMILL. A Story of the Plains. BY THE LATEJULIANA HORATIA EWING.AUTHOR OF “SIX TO SIXTEEN;” “FLAT IRON FOR A FARTHING;”“MRS. OVERTHEWAY’S REMEMBRANCES,” ETC. WITH ELEVEN ILLUSTRATIONS BY MRS. W. ALLINGHAM(HELEN PATERSON). FIFTH EDITION LONDON: GEORGE BELL & SONS, YORK STREET, COVENT GARDEN. 1890. DedicatedTO MY DEAR SISTER MARGARET.J. H. E. CONTENTS. PAGECHAPTER I.THE WINDMILLER’S WIFE.—STRANGERS.—TEN SHILLINGS A WEEK.—THE LITTLE JAN.1CHAPTER II.THE MILLER’S CALCULATIONS.—HIS HOPES AND FEARS.—THE NURSE-BOY.—CALM.14CHAPTER III.THE WINDMILLER’S WORDS COME TRUE.—THE RED SHAWL.—IN THE CLOUDS.—NURSING V. PIG-MINDING.—THE ROUND-HOUSE.—THE MILLER’S THUMB.20CHAPTER IV.BLACK AS SLANS.—VAIR AND VOOLISH.—THE MILLER AND...