United States History, Conspiracy Facts, and an Attitude Problem. PhD student in History @LibertyU. Witches of Washington podcast producer. Witch Hunters Unite!
I am far from insensible, that at this extraordinary Time of the Devils coming down in great Wrath upon us, there are too many Tongues and Hearts thereby set on fire of Hell; that the various Opinions about the Witchcrafts which of later time have troubled us, are maintained by some with so much cloudy Fury, as if they could never be sufficiently stated, unless written in the Liquor wherewith Witches use to write their Covenants; and that he who becomes an Author at such a time, had need be fenced with Iron, and the Staff of a Spear.
--Cotton Mather
@EmeraldRobinson Now that you mention it, the Constitution was written in secret, with a goal of forcing different governments together. And Ben Franklin was a bit of a media man. There is nothing new under the sun.
@MoundLore 0.o fun fact: Washington used a hemp rope to hang Thomas Hickey in front of like 14-20,000 people, mostly soldiers (gotta send that message).
In the dense forests of Tsenacommacah, around 1596, a girl named Matoaka was born to the paramount chief Powhatan. They called her Pocahontas—“the playful one”—for her lively spirit amid the longhouses and rivers of the Powhatan confederacy. When English ships anchored at Jamestown in 1607, she was a child of about eleven.
Captain John Smith later claimed she flung herself across him to spare his execution; historians judge the tale inflated or invented, yet the young woman did move between worlds, carrying food and messages that briefly eased the settlers’ hunger.
In 1613 English raiders seized her on the Potomac. Held hostage at Jamestown for more than a year, she learned English ways, accepted baptism as Rebecca, and in 1614 married the tobacco planter John Rolfe.
Their union, one of the first recorded between colonist and Native, produced a son, Thomas, and a fragile peace that lasted only as long as she lived. In 1616 the family sailed to England. There the “Indian princess” walked the streets of London in English dress, met the king, and became a living emblem of the New World’s promise.
Within months disease claimed her. She died at Gravesend in March 1617, not yet twenty-two, and was buried in foreign soil far from the rivers of her childhood.
The doctor who delivered Dolly Parton in a one-room Tennessee cabin in 1946 was paid with a sack of cornmeal. Her father farmed other people's land and could not read or write. Eighty years later, the reading program she built in his name has mailed more than 300 million books.
She wrote "I Will Always Love You" on the same afternoon she wrote "Jolene," as a goodbye to Porter Wagoner, and released it in 1974. Elvis wanted it. The night before the session, Colonel Tom Parker called and said Presley would only record it if they got half the publishing, meaning half of everything the song ever earned. She had been in Nashville ten years by then. She said no, and cried all night. Whitney Houston cut her version in 1992, held number one for fourteen weeks, and Forbes later put Parton's royalties from it near $10 million. She put some of that money into an office complex in Nashville and called the place the house that Whitney built.
Dollywood opened in Pigeon Forge in 1986 because she wanted paychecks in the county she came from. Around 4,000 people work there now. Three million visitors come every year. The University of Tennessee put its economic impact at $1.8 billion, and it is the largest employer in Sevier County. Since 2022 the company has paid tuition, fees, and books in full for every worker from their first day, seasonal hires included.
Wildfires tore through those mountains in November 2016, killing fourteen people and destroying more than 2,400 buildings. Her foundation was handing out money within 48 hours. Every family that lost a home got $1,000 a month for six months, regardless of income. The final check was $5,000. Total delivered: $8.9 million.
In April 2020 she sent $1 million to Vanderbilt for coronavirus research. When Moderna's vaccine results ran in the New England Journal of Medicine that November, her fund appeared in the footnotes.
Carl Dean, her husband of nearly sixty years, died in March 2025. The note she wrote to fans afterward ended with the same five words she wrote for Porter Wagoner back in 1974. She died in Nashville today. Her family asked that instead of flowers, people give to the Imagination Library, which still mails 3.4 million books a month to children who will never get to meet her.
JUST IN: Country music icon Dolly Parton, 80, has died.
Her nephew, Brian Seaver, made the announcement on Instagram.
"My name is Brin Seaver, son of Cassie Parton, and I’m representing the Parton and Owens family today announcing the passing of my aunt, Dolly Rebecca Parton Dean, Sister, Sis and Granny to one generation and Gigi to the next."
"This video announcement is something Dolly asked of me years ago, before I fully absorbed it as a future reality..."
Rest in peace.
This is a topic of such historical value that it requires further examination. IMHO, the public was gaslit from day one and a new trial should be held, if nothing else.
If you read the comments to this, you will understand that some people will always believe that Derek Chauvin murdered George Floyd. You can point out no cop murders someone when he knows he is being watched and filmed in broad daylight. You can show them that Floyd had enough fentanyl in his system to kill an elephant. You can disprove the asphyxiation theory. They will still say ‘he had his knee on his neck!’ It’s good to counter the wrong narratives and get out the facts for people who can be persuaded. But be modest of what you can achieve. People don’t give up narratives rooted in their world view.
Spruce Behemoth — Strong Molasses-Spruce Ale Recipe
Ingredients:
1¼ gallons water
6 oz fresh spruce or pine tips — or 1½ tsp spruce essence
½ oz hops (something assertive helps balance the sweetness; Cascade or Chinook)
2 cups molasses (about 1½ lbs)
1 lb dark brown sugar
8 oz honey or amber dry malt extract (held back for step-feeding)
1 packet Lalvin EC-1118 champagne yeast — this is non-negotiable; ale yeast quits around 9–10%
1 tsp yeast nutrient, split into two doses
Optional: 5 cracked allspice berries, 1 tsp ground ginger, 1 cinnamon stick
Directions
Boil the water with hops and spices for 20 minutes; add spruce tips for the last 10. Strain.
Off heat, dissolve in the molasses, brown sugar, and the first ½ tsp of nutrient. Hold the honey back.
Cool below 75°F, transfer to your sanitized jug, and pitch the champagne yeast. Airlock on, somewhere cool (65–70°F — high-gravity ferments run hot and hot ferments taste like fusel-alcohol headaches).
Around day 4–5, when the first violent fermentation settles, warm the honey in a little water, cool it, and add it along with the remaining nutrient. Step-feeding like this is the trick to hitting high gravity without stalling the yeast at the start.
Ferment 3–4 weeks total, until the airlock is dead silent and the beer starts to clear.
Rack off the sediment into a clean jug and let it sit another 2–4 weeks. This stuff throws a lot of yeast and needs to fall bright.
Bottle. Two honest options: still, like a spruce barleywine — just bottle it flat; or lightly carbonated — ¾ tsp sugar per bottle, no more, and only in genuine heavy-glass swing-tops. Champagne yeast at this strength will absolutely turn over-primed bottles into grenades.
Age a minimum of 2 months, and 4–6 is better. Young, it tastes hot and rummy; aged, it turns into something dark, piney, and dangerously smooth — closer to a spruce-tip old ale or a dry rum-adjacent mead than anything the tavern sold by the tankard.