History | Political Science
Spicy food enthusiast, chronically sleepy.
Noah Horlacher
Staff Writer
History
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Founding Moments: A Journey Through Oz and the American Experiment
The Wizard of Oz is a cinematic classic. But for those of us born in the 21st century, what was once a revolutionary display of imaginative effects and vivid Technicolor now looks a little quaint. What is more interesting today, perhaps, is something found in the film's denouement. As the Wicked Witch of the West evaporates into gaseous nothingness, freeing the Land of Oz from her despotic leadership, the viewer can't help but wonder: What about the Winkies? Those native, friendly yellow-clad people that the Witch had enslaved. They are free. But free to do what? With their tyrant gone, what kind of social order are they to form part of? More importantly, what can be done to prevent the Witch from ever returning to enslave them again? At this moment, the Winkie folk are undergoing their very own founding.
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The Iranian Conflict in Some Context
For anyone who has watched the Islamic Republic jail dissidents, crush protests, and export violence across the region, the death of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei is welcome news. The desire to see Iranians live under a system better than the one he built is entirely legitimate. Now the brutal ruler is gone, a major victory for the free world and the people of Iran. [1]
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Conspiracy: Thoughts on Information, Truth, and Deception
From the sixth floor of the Texas School Book Depository, the view of Dealey Plaza is ordinary. Cars shuttle past the grassy knoll. Tourists pose on the large X painted on Elm Street. In the museum, the glassed-off corner where Lee Harvey Oswald allegedly fired at President Kennedy is a crime scene frozen in time—rifle replicas, book boxes, and grainy footage looping on screens tell its story.
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America is depopulating: is Thanos to Blame?
In April of 2018, Avengers: Infinity War stunned critics and audiences with one of the most terrifying cinematic cliffhangers of all time. The all-powerful infinity “snap” that caused many of the film's main protagonists, along with half of its living Universe, to disappear into thin air. While the prospect of an infinity “snap” isn’t looming over Earth and its heroes today, there is a much more subtle danger that may threaten the same terrible end as the one perpetrated by the villain Thanos himself: The gradual, steady decline in childbearing worldwide.
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