A Brief History On May 18, 1896, the Supreme Court of the US ruled that “separate but equal” was a legal doctrine for segregating Caucasian Americans from Americans of sub-Saharan African descent, especially regarding school children. The case known as Plessy v. Ferguson is frequently referred to as the most egregious error in judgement ever made by the Supreme Court. Oddly enough, the case has never been overturned, except regarding the classroom. Digging Deeper Some other cases that have attracted the ire of Supreme Court critics include Dred Scott v. Sandford of 1857 about fugitive slaves, the Buck v. Bell…
Browsing: Health/Medicine
A Brief History On May 9, 2020, the unemployment rate in the United States hit the staggering number of 14.9%, the worst employment number since the Great Depression in 1939. Digging Deeper Incredibly, the unemployment rate in the UK was less than 5% and in Germany it was “only” 5.9%, while Europe as a whole suffered just over 7% unemployment in the Year of COVID. Sadly, lower income working class people in the US were hurt the worst by the fallout from the COVID-19 pandemic, with persistent unemployment leading to loss of health insurance and inability to pay normal bills. …
A Brief History On March 12, 2011, the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant in Japan was devastated by the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami, causing a reactor to explode and release radiation into the environment. Digging Deeper To this day a 12 mile radius “no-go” zone is imposed around the disaster site, with only scientists and technicians with appropriate protection allowed to visit. Radioactive water will continue to be released into the Pacific Ocean for a period of 3 decades. Far from the only nuclear plant disaster, other disasters have cast a pall on what has been touted as “clean”…
A Brief History On March 5, 2023, Americans celebrate yet another of those strange “National Days” that you may not be aware of, this time, honoring that fabled alcoholic beverage, Absinthe, known as “The Green Fairey.” Digging Deeper Created by French doctor Pierre Ordinaire in the late 18th Century and made with wormwood, anise, fennel, other herbs, and of course, plenty of alcohol, the libation was first intended as a medicinal elixir. Containing a trace amount of a chemical called thujone, Absinthe was reputed to be hallucinogenic, and was banned in the US and most of Europe by 1915. Not…
A Brief History On February 26, 2023, the Wall Street Journal said that the US Department of Energy reported that the origin of the world-wide pandemic of COVID-19 in all probability did indeed come from a leak at the Wuhan, China biological lab that was the epicenter of the outbreak in late 2019. Digging Deeper The DOE joins the FBI in making this dramatic assertion, after years of suppression of any hint of allegations that this Chinese biolab that just happened to be at the source of the deadly virus was indeed responsible. It is abundantly apparent that the Chinese…
