On October 18, 1775, African-American poet Phillis Wheatley was freed from slavery, upon the death of her master. Widely appreciated in her day, she was the first African-American to publish a book.
File this under “Good Guy with Gun”:
BEND, Oregon — A hero dad was driving home for his lunch break when he heard gunshots and ran into an Oregon elementary school special-education room to stop a crazed teen’s deadly mass shooting, according to a report.
Kaylub Giamanco, a 36-year-old carpenter and father of two girls who attend Silver Rail Elementary in Bend, was heading home from his break Thursday around 1 p.m. when he heard gunfire coming from the area around the school, said his brother, Kyle Giamanco, to NBC News.
Giamanco, who owns a concealed weapon, bravely pursued teen gunman Griffin J. John into the school building’s special-education room and fatally shot him, his brother said.
Jared Downing and Zoe Hussain, “New details revealed about hero girl dad who stopped Oregon school shooter Griffin J. John during his lunch break,” New York Post (October 16, 2026).
Much has been made that, to stop the malefactor, Mr. Giamanco had to disobey the “gun-free” policy of the school:
Paul Jacob has covered many “good guy with gun stops mad killer on the loose” stories. It is important to acknowledge these stories, though the hero in this case wants no recognition.
The shooter, a 16-year-old, shot and killed three students along with a teacher. The gunman had stolen his mother’s shotgun, using the firearm to get into the Silver Rail Elementary School on Thursday. Details on the two survivors, a student and a teacher, have not yet been released, though both are reported alive but still in hospital care.
The more the state ‘plans’ the more difficult planning becomes for the individual.
F. A. Hayek, The Road to Serfdom, Chapter 6, “Planning and the Rule of Law.”
People often complain about money in politics. In Maine, a campaign managed to take politics out of money in politics. The Oregonian explains: “You might have recently seen a political advertisement about Maine’s Senate race.
That’s because the advertisement mistakenly played in Portland, Oregon, instead of Portland, Maine.
The advertisement, paid for by Republican PAC Defending Main Street, decries “Taxin’ Troy Jackson,” the Democratic candidate facing off against Susan Collins.
Meanwhile, north of the Columbia, political advertising goes on as usual. A “statistical dead heat” race between incumbent Democratic Representative Marie Gluesenkamp Perez and Trump-backed Republican challenger John Braun shows both candidates walking a fine line, trying to ply partisanship in their favor, but still trying to distance themselves from perceived craziness within their respective parties (or so says public radio).
But if you want old-fashioned negative campaigning, a Perez attack ad against Braun is pure perfection:
A very simple pitch. Effective? Seemingly.
Yet challenger Braun says the ad is misleading. The ad’s charge is he didn’t call the son of a worker who died on the job — of a company Braun runs; but this is the result, says Braun, of the fact that he talked to the son in person more than once at the job site.
This is an ad that could backfire. Unlike the Maine ad running in Oregon, which just fizzled into nothing but laughter.
My own belief, more than once set afloat from this spot, is that it will take us, soon or late, into the stormy waters of Fascism. To be sure, that Fascism is not likely to be identical with the kinds on tap in Germany, Italy and Russia; indeed, it is very apt to come in under the name of anti-Fascism. And its first Duce, whether the Hon. Mr. Roosevelt or another, will not call himself a dictator, but a scotcher of dictators.
H. L. Mencken, “Of The People, By The People,” The Baltimore Sun, November 6, 1938. Mencken was born on September 12, 1880, and died on January 29, 1956.
“The date was October 17, 1909 — the fiftieth anniversary of John Brown’ famous (some say infamous) raid of the federal armory and arsenal at Harpers Ferry, Virginia, which ended with the deaths of most of Brown’s small band of men and led to the execution of Brown, making him the most celebrated martyr to the cause of abolition.” So begins The Secret Six: The True Tale of the Men Who Conspired with John Brown (1995), by Edward J. Renehan, Jr.
As the author goes on to explain, it was a big occasion, with many ceremonies, including an inconspicuous one “not far from the site of the engine house where John Brown’s enterprise ended in defeat, a small group of aging abolitionists held a quiet prayer meeting — anxious not to be taken much notice of.” But in Concord, Massachusetts, the “most poignant exercise in memory” took place: “the surviving remnants of the Secret Six, that small, enigmatic cabal of northern aristocrats who financed John Brown’s strange adventure.”
Those attending this meeting were two conspirators, Thomas Wentworth Higginson (December 22, 1823 – May 9, 1911) and Franklin Sanborn (December 15, 1831 – February 24, 1917), as well as Julia Ward Howe (May 27, 1819 – October 17, 1910), widow of a third conspirator, Dr. Samuel Gridley Howe (November 10, 1801 – January 9, 1876). Not present, because long dead, were Reverend Theodore Parker (August 24, 1810 – May 10, 1860), Gerrit Smith (March 6, 1797 – December 28, 1874), and George Luther Stearns (January 8, 1809 – April 9, 1867).
Print out a commemorative poster:
There was a big push or pseudo-push for congressional term limits in Congress in the mid-1990s. Later, first-term President Trump sort of promoted congressional term limits for a
Don’t we all wish we had congressional term limits or age limits, or both, whenever a congressman of extremely advanced tenure or age, or both, drags himself through yet another
Age limits would have been academic for Chuck Grassley, however, had he been subject to limits of, say, two six-year terms when he first became a senator in 1981. This is not an issue of people in their 70s, 80s, and 90s getting elected to Congress for the first time.
Grassley, for example, has been in Congress for the last 52 years: 46 years in the Senate and six years before that as a U.S. Representative. And let’s note 16 years in the Iowa State Legislature before that. Grassley has been in elected office non-stop for 68 years.
Five years ago, we were told that Grassley, filing to run for yet another term, would be 95 by the end of that term if he ran and won and survived. Now, at 93, he has just filed paperwork to run for yet another term. He would be 101 by the end of it if he runs and wins . . . and survives.
Which, accordingly, would be 74 consecutive years in
Time to give someone else a chance? Or will Grassley run again in 2032?
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
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Society has always to demand a little more from human beings than it will get in practice.
George Orwell, “The Art of Donald McGill” (1941).
On this day in 1859, abolitionist John Brown led a group of 21 men — 14 white, seven black — on a raid of the federal armory at Harpers Ferry, Virginia (then; since 1863, West Virginia), to capture weapons and initiate a slave revolt in southern states.
Brown’s forces initially captured the armory, which had only one guard on duty that night, but the expected uprising did not occur. Soon the raiders were blocked from any escape by townspeople and local militiamen and then overwhelmed by federal troops sent into the town (commanded by Colonel Robert E. Lee, who would later lead the Confederate armies). The siege ended on the 18th of October.
Ten of Brown’s men were killed during the incident; seven were captured, tried, convicted and executed, including John Brown; and five escaped. Two enslaved African-Americans joined Brown’s cause and also died in the fighting. Battling against Brown’s raiders, a Marine and four townspeople lost their lives, including the town’s mayor and a free African-American.
Though the raid on Harpers Ferry was a failure, it set the states on the road to disunion, war, and the eventual end of slavery.
“John Brown began the war that ended American slavery and made this a free Republic,” Frederick Douglass would write in remembrance of this event. “Until this blow was struck, the prospect for freedom was dim, shadowy and uncertain. The irrepressible conflict was one of words, votes and compromises. When John Brown stretched forth his arm the sky was cleared. The time for compromises was gone — the armed hosts of freedom stood face to face over the chasm of a broken Union — and the clash of arms was at hand.”
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The article is more exploratory than incendiary. Only a few DSA activists have taken part in the party’s China Working Group, visited China, or signed a public statement in support of the “continued survival of Chinese socialism.”
These “democratic socialists” qualify as “useful idiots” because they do not seem to realize that “Chinese socialism” — called “socialism with Chinese characteristics” by the Chinese themselves — is not democratic. The government is run by the Communist Party, a single entity, no competition allowed.
Why would people who insist on calling themselves “democratic” support this?
Because, as with all democratic socialists, at some point one is required to choose between the two ways of doing government. If you call yourself “socialist,” you’ve committed yourself, and you will have to choose tyranny at some point, or give up the
Democratic socialists in America are certainly useful to the Chinazis. And they are idiots. Thus the old term for moon-eyed westerners supporting Asian anti-democratic regimes carries on, still applicable after all these years.
But remember that China is not run as a centrally planned economy. It’s run like a fascist state, with party members working within businesses, only occasionally taking full control and ousting (even executing) owners and entrepreneurs and “uncooperative” managers . . . when the State requires. Just as did the National Socialist Party during Germany’s “Third Reich” period. As Peter Drucker sagely noticed, “Fascism is the stage reached after communism has proved an illusion.”
Democratic socialists may think they are not fascists, but fascism is indeed what they are pushing in America . . . and applauding when seen in China.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
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