Latest Stories

Most recently published stories in FYI.

The Raid on Deerfield
Ifyou visit the Old Burying Ground in Deerfield, Massachusetts, tucked away in the back corner there is a grassy mound with a weathered gravestone atop it. The only inscription it bears is the date “1704.” This centuries-old memorial honors fifty inhabitants of the tiny village killed in the overnight hours of February 28/29 by French and Native American raiders.
By Kathy Copeland Padden5 years ago in FYI
Monty Python’s Circus Takes Flight
Monty Python’s Flying Circus made its television debut on October 5, 1969. It was broadcast at 11 pm after most Britons had gone to bed. The episode was entitled “Whither Canada?” yet there wasn’t a single mention of Canada during the entire program. If you were a stickler for logic or reason then Monty Python wasn’t the show for you. However, if you had a rather warped sense of humor and wanted to laugh your buttocks off, you were in for a treat.
By Kathy Copeland Padden5 years ago in FYI
The Secret Sign to Show You're Vaccinated
I recently came across a rant that got me thinking. The person was suggesting that, since the world is reopening whether we like it or not, we (vaccinated liberals, specifically) should come up with a code to indicate that we’re unmasked because we’re vaccinated, and not because we don’t care about the well-being of others. The truth is, there’s already a secret sign in place.
By Jay Villin5 years ago in FYI
The Journals
The Journals, comprising most of Paul Blackburn’s final poems, is a milestone in the history of literary innovation, beyond the open field poetry of the BLACK MOUNTAIN SCHOOL and, earlier, vers libre of IMAGISM. Blackburn wanted to create open-ended occasions out of ordinary, everyday experiences, and thereby to shape a form appearing to be, paradoxically, formless. He rejected traditional poetry’s point of view that saw certain historical events as grand or monumental and others as inconsequential and that, accordingly, insisted on poetry that followed rhetorical principles of argument first established in classical times and later reaffirmed in the Renaissance. He replaced syllogism with juxtaposition or contingency, logical deduction and inference with the "logic" of experience, such as what a person sees or hears; and
By Baby5 years ago in FYI
History of Independence Day
Independence Day or the Fourth of July celebrates the adoption by the Continental Congress on July 4, 1776, of the Declaration of Independence, proclaiming the severance of the allegiance of the American colonies to Great Britain. It is the most significant secular holiday in the United States, observed in all the states, territories, and dependencies.
By Bill Petro5 years ago in FYI
How Lasers and Wi-Fi Were Born – Thanks to Cosmology
WHERE DO WE come from? How did we get here? They are questions which have been asked as long as there have been people. And answering them has given us not only valuable insights, but created great technologies along the way.
By Wilson da Silva5 years ago in FYI
History of Independence Day
Independence Day or the Fourth of July celebrates the adoption by the Continental Congress on July 4, 1776, of the Declaration of Independence, proclaiming the severance of the allegiance of the American colonies to Great Britain. It is the most significant secular holiday in the United States, observed in all the states, territories, and dependencies.
By Bill Petro5 years ago in FYI
The Timeless Wit and Wisdom of Dorothy Parker
Even if you don’t immediately recognise her name, you will certainly be acquainted with the incisive witticisms of acclaimed writer, poet, satirist, screenwriter, and critic, Dorothy Parker. Indeed, many of her clever one liners and sagacious sayings have become a part of our cultural lexicon. She was a founding member of the Algonquin Round Table, a New York- based circle of writers famed for their wit, wisecracks, and wordplay, and she remains an important figure in American modernist literature.
By Jupiter Grant5 years ago in FYI
Miami Condo Collapse—The Lesson By Howard Bloom
There’s a lesson in the collapse of the Champlain Towers South in the Miami suburb of Surfside. Infrastructure is key to our lives. Maintaining it and upgrading it is crucial to our role as the most advanced nation on earth. A role that is rapidly slipping away.
By Jimmy Stars World5 years ago in FYI
The Cold War
In the summer of 1945, an American B-29 bomber, the Enola Gay, set a course for Hiroshima, on the southern tip of Japan’s Honshu Island. The Enola Gay, it would soon be revealed, was no ordinary bomber plane. Her mission was to deliver a payload so powerful, so violent, and so devastating, that it would forever change the course of human events. In the wake of World War II, the world would see the rise of two nuclear superpowers. The United States of America and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, known informally as the Soviet Union, would soon become locked in a ‘Cold War’ that would push the world to the brink of disaster, and the human race to the edge of extinction.
By Mack Devlin5 years ago in FYI
The Night of the Long Knives
“If anyone reproaches me and asks why I did not resort to the regular courts of justice, then all I can say is this: In this hour I was responsible for the fate of the German people, and thereby I became the supreme judge of the German people.”
By Kathy Copeland Padden5 years ago in FYI
There's a n--ger in the woodpile
"There's a n--ger in the woodpile" is a term my grandmother used on occasion to indicate that a situation had something hidden that needed to be revealed. We lived in the county and actually had a pile of wood from which we gathered the sticks to make a fire. I could not imagine anyone hiding inside of a woodpile and never pondered that what my grandma said was more than just a phrase and at one time was a reality.
By Cheryl E Preston5 years ago in FYI