Archives

Categories

A World Lit Only by Fire – Part IV

By Carter Wrenn May 6, 2024

Luther fled Worms – the emperor condemned him. Made him an outlaw. Luther fled into hiding in the Thuringian Forest – fate reared its head a third time: The emperor had to leave Germany to go to Spain to fight his war with the King of France. Didn’t set foot in Germany again for ten…

Read More

Protests and Presidents

By Gary Pearce May 3, 2024

Fifty-four years ago this week, on May 8, 1970, 4,500 students from nearly a dozen colleges and universities marched on Capitol Square in Raleigh to protest the Vietnam War. Four days earlier, National Guardsmen had shot and killed four students and injured nine more in protests at Kent State University in Ohio. Our march, which…

Read More

A World Lit Only by Fire – Part III

By Carter Wrenn May 3, 2024

A peasant’s son Martin Luther never knew the year he was born. Believing children were wicked his father whipped him, his mother caned him. Luther’s harsh life led him to take refuge in the cloister. The Saxon prince started a college – Luther moved to Wittenburg, taught about St. Paul. Believed, like Paul, truth and…

Read More

A World Lit Only by Fire – Part II

By Carter Wrenn May 2, 2024

After Rodrigo Borgia died, soft-spoken but cunning Leo de Medici became pope, after bribing cardinals ended up strapped for cash. A German prince said he wanted to be an Archbishop. Leo told him that would cost him 12,000 gold ducats – 1000 for each of the Apostles. The prince frowned: How about 7000, one thousand…

Read More

A World Lit Only by Fire – Part I

By Carter Wrenn May 1, 2024

It was a time, Tom Hanks wrote describing the end of the Middle Ages, when dukes and serfs paid popes to keep from going to hell. The Holy Roman Empire was not holy, not Roman, and not an empire. He’d read A World Lit Only by Fire, William Manchester’s last book, five times. Popes hid…

Read More

Trust Flies Out the Window

By Carter Wrenn April 29, 2024

Planned Parenthood’s spending a ton of money – $10 million – to elect pro-abortion candidates in North Carolina. Eyes locked on white suburban women it’s running digital ads, knocking on a million doors to elect Joe Biden, the Democrat candidate for governor, and break the Republican super-majority in the state House and Senate. The first…

Read More

A School Test

By Gary Pearce April 29, 2024

The Republican legislature may not vote for Democratic Governor Roy Cooper’s school plan, but North Carolinians can in November. The Governor has drawn a line in the sand – and a clear line of difference between the two parties. Cooper’s plan: 5% teacher pay raise this year $1,500 retention bonus restore master’s degree pay for…

Read More

Democrats’ Country Inroads

By Gary Pearce April 25, 2024

New data shows that North Carolina Democrats are right to look for votes on country roads and small-town streets. A group called Rural Democracy Initiative – “Communities, Not Corporations” – will release a poll next month saying that “rural voters tend to be economic populists who would overwhelmingly support parts of the Democratic Party’s agenda…

Read More

A Lost Soul

By Carter Wrenn April 23, 2024

We don’t know much about him – he grew up in a village on the coast of Long Island, bowled in high school, sang karaoke, got two college degrees, moved to St. Augustine, Florida. His mother, struggling with pulmonary disease, died – he wrote, “I am proud to say she navigated the awful challenges of…

Read More

Categories

Archives

Recent Articles

Grinch Griffin

By Gary Pearce December 22, 2024

The Grinch tried to steal Christmas. Jefferson Griffin is trying to steal an election at Christmas.…

Read More

Tall Tales?

By Carter Wrenn December 20, 2024

I might be wrong but a story one of Kamala Harris’ political wizards told after she…

Read More

Jim Hunt’s Gift

By Gary Pearce December 19, 2024

Forty years ago this month, at a low point in his political career, Jim Hunt had…

Read More