History

Do Svidaniya, Tchaikovsky and the Year 1893

Maria de Jesus of Portugal died earlier this year, relinquishing the title of world's oldest known person at 115 years and 114 days. Born Sept. 10, 1893, de Jesus was a farm worker from age 12 who never learned to read or write, ate a vegeterian diet and outlived her husband by 57 years. Perhaps the most amazing facet of her longevity was that she got to know six great-great-grandchildren. The death of de Jesus makes the oldest person Gertrude Baines, an American supercentenarian living in a ... (read more)

World's Oldest Person Dies (Again)

One of the best jobs I ever had was working weekends on the state desk at the Fort Worth Star-Telegram during the late '80s. I took calls from correspondents across North Texas, wrote spot-news stories and spent the other 98 percent of my time reading everything on the news wire. That job had a lot in common with publishing the Drudge Retort today, with the notable exception that you once needed a journalism job to gorge on an all-you-can-eat buffet of wire stories. When you read news for too ... (read more)

Defending ACORN's Voter Registration Efforts

Shelley Powers wrote a blog entry yesterday in support of ACORN: ACORN is an organization focused on getting people to vote, ensuring that people equal access to housing and education, supportive of unions, and decent working conditions. Really, how awful—what do these people think this country is? ACORN and Missouri have a long history together because my state is always held up as the poster child for voter registration fraud. Governor Blunt, a man so despised after his one and only term as ... (read more)