A Brief History The following short horror story was written in 2018 by a student at John Carroll University interested in the supernatural.  The story is written in the style of the stories found in Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark (1981) or a more modern creepypasta. Digging Deeper: Complete Text of “The Backroom” We have two rules when we go to our family reunion. Don’t wander by yourself, especially at night, and never enter the basement. These rules seemed fair, especially when considering the size of my uncle’s manor. It wasn’t that hard to follow the rules anyway, since I spent…

A Brief History On May 15, 2018, we are finally allowed to tell you about the exciting and absolutely hilarious new blockbuster action hero movie, Deadpool 2, which premiers on Friday, May 18, 2018 in the United States. The sequel to Deadpool, the 2016 blockbuster that made over a quarter of a billion dollars at the box office (a dozen times its budget), Deadpool 2 again stars Ryan Reynolds in the title role of a disgraced Special Forces soldier that has turned mercenary. When the Reynolds character gets terminal cancer, an experimental treatment turns him into a disfigured superhuman that…

A Brief History On May 14, 2018, we celebrate another one of those goofy pseudo-holidays, this time National Dance Like a Chicken Day, a day in which we acknowledge the superiority of that wedding reception standby (along with the Hokey Pokey), the Chicken Dance. Of course, we must also delve into what chickens are and how they are important to us. Digging Deeper Long before there was a Chicken Dance, people kept Chickens not for food, but for entertainment. About 5,000 years ago in Asia people started keeping the Red Junglefowl (perhaps crossbred with the Grey Junglefowl), the bird that…

A Brief History On May 13, 1981, Mehmet Ali Agca, a Turkish member of the Grey Wolves (ultranationalist Turkish neo-fascist organization), attempted to assassinate Pope John Paul II by shooting the pontiff four times with a 9mm Browning semi-automatic pistol. The Pope survived and eventually forgave the attempted assassin. So far this incident was nearly tragic, but not all that exceptional, at least until John Paul II revealed the long held information about the “Third Secret of Fátima” in June of 2000, telling the world that the assassination attempt had been the third prophesy foretold by three Portuguese children in…

A Brief History On May 12, 1593, History shows us a good example of the problems that develop when Church and State are not separate. Playwright Thomas Kyd was swept up with many others in a sweep of suspects in “libelous” postings (“divers lewd and mutinous libels”) around London, England, accused of posting letters denying the Holy Trinity and the Godliness of Jesus Christ (Arianism) and comments critical of the government. Kyd and the others were questioned and tortured by the Privy Council, as was the customary treatment of suspected blasphemers, and their lodgings were searched for evidence. Digging Deeper…