Tag: the state

Away Down the Hill, Chapter Two

When I turned thirteen my aunt came to see me.  I was in the kitchen, chopping carrots, and Sister Mary told me someone was here to visit me. I rinsed my hands and went back into the courtyard. “My! What a nice looking girl you are! You have plumped out, haven’t you! You were always just as skinny as could be.  So today you are thirteen years old! How does it feel?” I had forgotten the day of my birth; the nuns cared nothing for dates and numbers. “It feels fine, aunt. How are you doing?” “Me? Oh, just the…

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Away Down the Hill, Chapter One

My name is Adele.  But the other sisters call me Catherine. So I do not know who I am. My mother was French.  My father was German. My father’s family was angry because he married a foolish French woman. After my parents died I was given to a nunnery, and have lived there ever since. I remember the day, when I was four years old. My aunt Matilda pulled me impatiently through the streets and stopped at the nunnery door. She crossly straightened my little brown dress and tied the old shoes that were too big for me, and then…

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Away Down the Hill

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A Short Story by Savannah Liston Excerpts published below, the whole will be published in serial throughout the next few weeks. My name is Adele.  But the other sisters call me Catherine. So I do not know who I am. I crept to the bed and pulled myself up to the window again. The moon was shining brightly, and that helped to sooth my worry. I watched it shining on the cold ground until it moved beyond my sight. Then I lay down and cried myself to sleep. Thus was my first day at St. Margaret’s Nunnery. The streets were…

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Disrespect for the Government, by Felipe Franco

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A fascinating article over at Lew Rockwell on the differences between Latin America and the United States. Excerpts to whet your appetite: People rarely race around at dangerous high speeds. They don’t delay either. Major collisions are much rarer than in the U.S. I lived for 5 years in a city of one million people that had no traffic lights or stop signs at the time. Traffic flow was very natural. Traffic would flow one way through an intersection until there was a natural lull and then the cars from the other direction would nose in and dominate the intersection until…

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Educating the New Generation: Parents…or the Government?

I had an encounter yesterday with someone who was in the education sector, probably a public school teacher, but I’m not sure. At any rate, I was asked about my status in highschool, I was assumed to be a sophomore, after which I informed this person that I just graduated from highschool. I was questioned as to the testing and regulations for homeschoolers to graduate. I answered that the parents decided when their child had completed highschool, and in Illinois, there are no tests that kids have to take. This person was, to say the least, aghast, that there was…

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The Underground History of American Education

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A new book is due out soon by John Taylor Gatto, read about it here. Samuel Blumenfield notes, “…with the educational-industrial complex, we are dealing with an entirely different animal, one that eats children alive, destroys minds, destroys families, undermines our culture, provides neither protection from our enemies nor academic learning for our kids.” There are countless times while I’m reading about public education where I stop and thank God that I was homeschooled. As a recent graduate, I’ve thought a lot about education in the last few months, and it made me realize, all over again, what a profound…

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Dr. Seuss and Liberty?

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There’s a remake of one of his most famous lines circulating Facebook right now…but before I post that, I’d like to mention that his book “Yurtle the Turtle” has been interpreted as an anti-statist parable, you might say. Anti-statist being anti-state. One turtle decides he must get high enough to see the whole world (or something alone those lines) and tells the other turtles it doesn’t matter how they feel about it, they must sacrifice themselves for him, so that he can see the world. Anyways, here’s the remake: I do not like it Uncle Sam, I do not like…

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Who Am I? An Essay of Identity

The title of this piece is taken from the Broadway Musical based on the book by Victor Hugo, “Les Miserables.” In the musical, the protagonist sings, “Who Am I?” because he is caught between two identities, one being his respected life as the mayor of a town, and the other being his former life as a convict. He struggles between being Jean Valjean and “24601”—his prison number. The prison number is an artificial identity, given to him by the state because of his alleged crime of stealing bread for his sister’s starving child. Yes, he was guilty of theft, but…

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