My wife and I spent last weekend at Gatlinburg. The mountains are beautiful this time of year- which is why that place is so clogged with tourists you can’t turn around. I hate crowds, but we …
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Troy Smith
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10/13/22
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Hello readers. I am John Gottlied. I understand that you may be wondering who I am and why I am writing this column. I have no expertise or academic certifications that would qualify me to …
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John Gottlied
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10/13/22
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Several things have sort of coalesced and crossed over for me the last few days, creating a sort of pattern.
This weekend, my wife and I attended the WilCo (Wilson County) Pow Wow, which is …
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Troy Smith
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9/30/22
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A few more words about fear.
Every year, I share with honors freshmen an excerpt from Ralph Waldo Emerson’s 1837 essay “The American Scholar.” It lays out the civic …
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Troy Smith
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9/24/22
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There has been an amazing amount written both for and against the legal maneuvering over the Mar-A-Lago raid. It seems to me that the relevant facts have been exposed for the public to see, at …
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Donald Home
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9/15/22
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This newspaper is published on Thursdays, but I write these columns on the weekend before it comes out. I am writing this one on Sunday, Sept. 11.
Like many of us, I’ve spent much of this …
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Troy Smith
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9/15/22
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Good morning, everyone! I hope we all looked at the election meddling presentation put forward by “the pillow man,” Mike Lindel, and understand the peril we are in. For those of you …
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Donald Holman
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9/9/22
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For the last three weeks, I’ve been talking about the troubling nature of Christian Nationalism, which is rising in popularity on the right. I demonstrated that it is not historically …
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Troy Smith
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9/1/22
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Good morning to all, regardless the time if day you are reading this! Let’s get to the news!
Across Florida, conservatives took back their school boards from the progressives that were …
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Donald Holman
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9/1/22
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“The United States is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion.”
That’s what I closed with last week. It is a quote from the 1797 Treaty with Tripoli (today the …
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Troy Smith
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8/25/22
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Last week, I talked about Christian Nationalism, the idea the United States was expressly established to be a Christian nation, that there should be no separation of church and state, that …
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Troy Smith
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8/20/22
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A great big good morning to all of you! Once again, we have had a news-filled week, so let’s get started.
The CDC has finally upgraded its guidance on the Chinese virus. Just last …
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Donald Holman
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8/20/22
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“Good day” at whatever time you may choose to read this. I am writing on a Wednesday morning, in the year of our Lord 2022. In the interests of “catching up,” I am going …
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Donald Holman
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8/11/22
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I’m going to start off this week by making a statement that would not have seemed the least bit controversial a few years ago and, in fact, would have been considered self-evident …
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Troy Smith
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8/11/22
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For the past couple of weeks, I’ve been talking about public education -in the U.S. overall, and Tennessee in particular. I addressed the fact that people have, for the last several …
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Troy Smith
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8/4/22
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This week, I want to talk a little more about public education, in general, and give you some historical context. Let’s say “American history” in the sense of the U.S., started in …
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Troy Smith
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7/28/22
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I’m going to take a break from chronicling the Trump investigation saga. Instead, this week, let’s talk about teachers.
Throughout the 20th century, teachers were among the most …
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Troy Smith
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7/21/22
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Last week I gave my opinion that Trump will probably not be indicted for any crimes because the Justice Department and the Democratic Party would judge such an action to be too dangerous, as it would …
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Troy Smith
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7/14/22
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These last few weeks have presented a political commentator an embarrassment of riches when it comes to topics for discussion. Let’s wander about and see what we can find; shall we?
One of …
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Donald Holman
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7/14/22
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On Jan. 6, 2021, a frenzied crowd of Trump supporters wanted to kill Mike Pence and various Democratic legislators. Donald Trump not only wanted to let them but he also stirred them up to do it and …
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Troy Smith
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7/7/22
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