There are only 236 of them left on Earth. Every single one has a name.
The kākāpō is the world's heaviest parrot - a mossy green, owl-faced bird the size of a small dog that cannot fly, may live to 90 years, and only breeds every 2 to 4 years when New Zealand's rimu trees produce enough fruit to trigger the urge.
Rats. Cats. Stoats. Humans clearing forests. The kākāpō never evolved to outrun any of them.
By 1995, 51 birds remained. Scientists, rangers, and Ngāi Tahu - the Māori people who have always known this bird as taonga, a treasure—evacuated every last one to predator-free islands.
Each bird got a transmitter. Each nest watched around the clock.
This past February 14th, the first kākāpō chick in four years hatched. They named her Tīwhiri. By spring, 59 chicks had been born.
236 birds. Every name known. Every nest watched.
Who's counting down the days until the rimu trees fruit again? 🦜
#DemsUnited #Nature
52 websites worth more than most college degrees:
1. Coursera. org – University courses completely free to audit
2. Brilliant. org – Interactive math and science learning
3. Wolfram Alpha – Answers any mathematical or factual question
4. GitHub. com – Learn coding from real world projects
5. Investopedia. com – Finance and investing explained simply
6. Archive. org – Access millions of free books and old websites
7. Project Gutenberg – 70000 free classic books
8. Duolingo. com – Learn any language for free
9. Notion. so – Organise your entire life and learning
10. Our World in Data – Every global statistic visualised
11. Statista. com – Data and statistics on everything
12. OpenLibrary. org – Borrow millions of books online free
13. Hemingwayapp. com – Write clearer and simpler instantly
14. NASA. gov – Space science and research for free
15. PubMed. gov – Access real scientific research papers
16. Edx. org – Free courses from Harvard MIT and more
17. TED. com – Best ideas from the world's best thinkers
18. Anki – The most powerful memory tool ever built
19. Canva. com – Design anything without being a designer
20. Skillshare. com – Creative and practical skill learning
21. Readwise. io – Remember everything you ever read
22. Google Scholar – Search real academic papers
23. Codecademy. com – Learn to code completely free
24. ChatGPT – AI tutor available 24 hours a day
25. Figma. com – Learn professional design for free
26. Replit. com – Code anything from your browser
27. Huberman Lab Podcast – Science based health education
28. Mindmeister. com – Mind mapping for better thinking
29. NerdWallet. com – Personal finance made simple
30. Quizlet. com – Study smarter with flashcards
31. Gapminder. org – See the real state of the world
32. PhET Simulations – Interactive science experiments online
33. Numbeo. com – Cost of living data for every city on earth
34. 23andMe. com – Understand your own genetics
35. Zapier. com – Automate your work without coding
36. Lesswrong. com – Deep rational thinking and decision making
37. Documentaryheaven. com – Thousands of free documentaries
38. Trading Economics – Economic data for every country
39. Perplexity. ai – AI powered research tool
40. Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy – Every philosophical idea explained
41. Librivox. org – Free audiobooks of classic literature
42. Zooniverse. org – Participate in real scientific research
43. Futurelearn. com – Free short courses from top universities
44. Typing. com – Learn to type properly and fast
45. Drawabox. com – Learn to draw from absolute scratch
46. Grammarly. com – Write better in every situation
47. Khanacademy. org – Free world class education for everyone
48. Desmos. com – The most powerful free graphing calculator
49. Stellarium. org – Explore the night sky from your screen
50. Psychologytoday. com – Mental health and psychology explained
51. Worldometers. info – Real time global statistics on everything
52. Notion. so/ templates – Free templates to organise your entire life
No, "Seven Hillsides" (Ricky Skaggs, 1999) wasn't written about the Bedford Boys. Walt Wilkins penned it as a preacher's struggle to bury seven young Appalachian miners' sons who "stormed the beaches wave on wave." The vivid D-Day imagery resonates deeply with Bedford, Virginia's story—where 19 of ~30 local men died on Omaha Beach June 6, 1944—but the song is a broader meditation on faith amid sudden, devastating loss in hill country communities. It fits the memorial's spirit perfectly though.
His name was Roddie Edmonds.
Most people had never heard of him.
A quiet Methodist from Knoxville, Tennessee. A husband. A father. A churchgoing man who came home from World War II, raised his family, and never once bragged about what he had done.
The world almost lost his story completely.
December 1944.
The Battle of the Bulge.
Roddie Edmonds had been on the Western Front less than a week when his unit was surrounded by German forces. Thousands of American soldiers were captured during Hitler’s final major offensive.
Edmonds became one of them.
What followed was brutal.
A forced march through freezing snow.
Men collapsing from exhaustion.
Packed into rail cars with almost no food or water.
Days of starvation and cold before arriving at Stalag IX-A, a German prison camp.
As the highest-ranking American noncommissioned officer there, Edmonds was responsible for 1,292 prisoners.
Then came the order.
All Jewish soldiers were to report separately the next morning.
Everyone understood what that meant.
Separation was not administration.
It was a death sentence.
That night, Edmonds gathered his men and gave a simple instruction:
“All of you. Every American. Outside in formation tomorrow morning.”
The next day, the German commandant arrived expecting a small group.
Instead, he found 1,292 American prisoners standing shoulder to shoulder.
Furious, he shouted:
“They cannot all be Jews!”
Roddie Edmonds answered with four words that would echo across history:
“We are all Jews here.”
The commandant pulled out a pistol and pressed it against Edmonds’s forehead.
He threatened to shoot him if he did not identify the Jewish soldiers immediately.
Edmonds never moved.
Instead, he calmly reminded the officer that under the Geneva Convention, prisoners only had to give their name, rank, and serial number.
Then he said this:
“If you shoot, you’ll have to shoot all of us. And when this war is over — which it nearly is — you’ll be tried as a war criminal.”
The commandant lowered the gun.
Turned around.
And walked away.
About 200 Jewish-American soldiers were saved that morning because one man refused to divide his men into categories worth protecting and categories worth surrendering.
But Edmonds wasn’t finished.
Weeks later, the Germans ordered the prisoners onto another forced march through the snow.
Edmonds knew many would die.
So he secretly told his men to make themselves appear too sick to travel — eat dirt, grass, whatever it took.
When the Germans came, the Americans stayed behind.
Nearly all the prisoners forced onto the march died.
Edmonds’s men survived to be liberated by General Patton’s forces in March 1945.
And then?
Roddie Edmonds came home and said almost nothing about it.
No speeches.
No interviews.
No book deals.
He worked. Went to church. Raised his children.
He died in 1985.
His family knew he had been a POW.
They had no idea he had saved hundreds of lives.
The truth only resurfaced decades later after his son discovered his wartime diary and began contacting survivors whose names were written inside.
Again and again, they told the same story.
The same frozen morning.
The same pistol.
The same four words.
“We are all Jews here.”
In 2015, Yad Vashem recognized Roddie Edmonds as “Righteous Among the Nations” — the first American soldier ever to receive the honor.
And in 2026, more than 80 years after that moment in the prison yard, his son accepted the Medal of Honor on his behalf.
No battlefield charge.
No dramatic explosion.
Just moral courage.
A man staring down a loaded gun and refusing to hand over his soldiers.
One survivor later said:
“That such people can exist gives you hope for humanity.”
They do exist.
Roddie Edmonds was one of them.