parties

     Many people still think of an election in terms of parties, instead of in terms of issues or candidates. They identify themselves as Democrats or Republicans, and always vote a "straight party ticket". That means the Democrats vote for only Democrats, and the Republicans vote for only Republicans, by pulling the party lever in the voting booth.  People who identify this strongly with one party or the other probably learned it at their mother's knee. They probably spend a lot less time trying to keep up with political issues and decisions, so there's at least something gained by "being" one party or another.

evolution

     Some self-proclaimed philosophers now maintain that they have evolved during the course of their lives, and will continue to evolve. Not so. Evolution, scientifically and genetically, means the alteration of a species or life form over generations. No being or creature evolves during its own lifetime. While we are alive we grow and learn, but we don't evolve.
     A creature that has evolved has actually changed into a different creature, over the course of centuries or millenia. The changes are said to be a product of natural selection. This means that if a particular trait or feature makes an individual creature more successful--more likely to survive--that the trait is more likely to be passed on. It seems like simple common sense now--of course the creatures that survive long enough to have young are the creatures that will pass on their traits to those young. But people didn't believe it at first--at least not as an explanation for the great variety of creatures on the planet.
     If you consider Darwin's finches, it may seem more probable. Darwin found that finches on different islands had evolved different beaks. Where there were seeds to eat, the finches had short sturdy beaks for breaking seeds. Where there were flowers, the finches had long slender beaks for sipping nectar. Darwin claimed that the finches had started out the same, but through generations, the finches where there were seeds to eat were more likely to survive if they had a beak that could be used to crack seeds. The finches where there was only flower nectar were more likely to survive if they had a longer, more slender beak. No individual birds actually grew longer or shorter beaks. They were just more likely to survive and reproduce if they had the right kind of beak.

execution

    To execute something means to carry it out as planned or directed. Laws are executed. The president of the United States takes an oath to faithfully execute his duties. A person being executed is another matter. It means a sentence of death is being carried out, or executed. This is also called capital punishment. A crime for which someone might be sentenced to death is called a capital crime.
     In the United States, we now execute people by lethal injection--that is, we poison them. Lethal injection is a fairly new method of killing people. Before the invention of lethal injection, people condemned to die were killed in the electric chair--they were shocked to death with electricity. Before the electric chair they were killed in a gas chamber. Before the gas chamber they were hanged. People are executed by the different states, so there is no one date to any of these methods of execution. The last legal hanging in the United States was in 1970--not so long ago.
     Execution was banned for several years in the 1970's. The Supreme Court ruled that minorities were being unfairly sentenced to death. No one was executed until the states could convince the court that they could have a death penalty and apply it fairly. The United States is one of the only western nations that still executes criminals. Execution continues, even though people protest it, although most of the protests seem to take place in the states where execution is rare ( as it is in Pennsylvania ). People must get used to the idea when it is used frequently--as it is in Texas, California ( yes, California ), Georgia and Florida.
    

a civil war

     A civil war means citizens of the same country are fighting each other ( instead of fighting people from another country ). When citizens fight to overthrow their own government, it is called a revolution. When they fight with each other, it is called a civil war. A civil war sometimes happens after a revolution, when the citizens fight over what kind of a new government they should  have.
     You may be familiar with the American Civil War, in which one part of the United States ( the North, along with the federal government ) fought the other part of the United States ( the South, with a new government they had made ). The people in the South didn't want to be part of the United States any longer--they wanted their own country.
    Other countries have had civil wars,  for different reasons, and with different histories. England had a civil war. China and Russia each had one. So did Ireland.
     If you want to know more about America's civil war, you can look for an old miniseries that was shown on PBS, called "The Civil War".

back in the day

     If you think politics is a dirty business now, remember that the bars and taverns used to be closed on election day. This wasn't to prevent drunken voting, but to stop election workers who had been buying votes with free drinks, every November.

taking the 5th

     If you have watched an organized-crime drama, you may have heard the phrase "I refuse to answer on the grounds that it might incriminate me", uttered by a mobster on trial. This is also known as "taking the 5th", and it isn't just for mobsters. In the United States,the 5th amendment ( to the US Constitution ) guarantees us that no one can be forced to give testimony against himself or herself.  Anyone else who refuses to testify in a US court can jailed for contempt of court.
     So this isn't just an out-of-date provision forbidding tortured or coerced confessions ( which it does ). It's a modern prohibition of any forced testimony that might incriminate the person testifying. 

time zones

     If you spend time on the internet, you have probably noticed that it's not the same time of day in California as in Pennsylvania. If you live on the east coast, and call someone in California at noon, it will be 9 am to the person you call. If you try to figure out what time an ebay auction ends, you will have to translate Pacific Time into Eastern Time, by adding 3 hours. If the auction ends at 9 am Pacific time, that's noon to someone in Philadelphia or New York.
     There are 24 hours in a day, and 24 time zones on the planet. It is always night somewhere, and always day somewhere. In fact, it is always morning, afternoon, evening, and the middle of the night--somewhere, and at the same time. Really. But not in the same place. If you think about time, it is still based on sunset and sunrise. Noon, the middle of the day, is when the sun is highest in the sky, which can only happen in one place at a time. As the Earth revolves ( making it seem like the sun is moving ) , the sun is in a different position, and it is a different time--for everyone on the planet.

Who is John Galt?

     John Galt is the author of The Annals of the Parish of New Scotland. 
     How old is Ann? is another matter. Ann is 37, by my reckoning.
     These questions are asked repeatedly by the characters in Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged.
     Partly through her novels, Rand founded a school of philosophy called "objectivism". Objectivists believe that there are elite people in the world, born with capacities that common people do not have. The objectivists also believe that they are this set of elite people. I couldn't disagree more. I not only don't believe that there is a set of elites on the planet who are born better than others, I don't even believe that people are born more intelligent than one another. I believe that all of the differences we can measure are the product of education, which begins at birth, not at age 6.
     Anyway, if you should meet a Randist or objectivist, and he or she should ask if you know who John Galt is, you'll be able to answer.

heavy metal

     You may encounter the phrase "heavy metal" and wonder where the music is. I don't know what scientific "heavy metal" has to do with musical "heavy metal", but the scientific version of "heavy metal" refers to the atomic weight of a metal or element. The "atomic weight" of an element means the weight of a single atom, compared to the weight of a single atom of another element.
     You may be familiar with the symbol for an atom, which is often used in pop culture.
      The "heavy metals" are some of the substances that are toxic to people and the environment--lead and  plutonium, for example.
    If you want to know more, you can look for the "periodic table of the elements", or "atoms" or "chemistry", in Wikipedia or on a science or chemistry site.

America in the year 1600

     Four hundred years ago, the land that is now the United States was inhabited only by the people with light brown or tan skin we now call Native Americans or American Indians. They lived in small settlements, some of which were nomadic ( they moved from place to place, depending on the season ).  They hunted, fished and grew corn, squash, and other crops. They had no metal tools, only wood, bone, and stone. They made pottery and baskets, and clothing made from the hides of animals ( like leather ).
     The first settlers from Europe arrived a few years after 1600--the pilgrims in the north, Jamestown in the south. These were the first whites in America. A few years after 1600, some of the whites brought black people from Africa to serve as slaves and farm workers.
     The settlement of the continent of South America ( where Brazil, Chile, Argentina, and other countries are ) was similar to the settlement of North America in many ways. South America was inhabited by people with light brown or olive skin. People came from Spain and Portugal, at first only looking for gold. There were some cities and large settlements in South America, and the Spanish and Portuguese took them over or destroyed them. The Europeans started farms or took farms belonging to the natives, often worked by the local "peons". They also imported black slaves from Africa, especially in what is now Brazil.  The Spanish  took over what is now part of the American west--California, Texas, New Mexico and Arizona. These territories later became part of the United States that had begun on the east coast.
     So America was a great "melting pot" long before the great waves of European immigrants in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

inheriting the kingdom

     You may have watched a Hollywood historical epic and wondered why it was so important for the king to have a son to inherit his crown and kingdom. You might remember the story of Henry VIII of England, for example, who defied the pope and founded a new religion, because he wanted a son. His first wife had only one child, a daughter, so he wanted to divorce her and marry again--hence the new religion.
    If a king died and left no son to succeed him, the remaining nobles often fought over who would become the next king. Leaving only a daughter might be just as bad. If she was young and unmarried, they would fight over who would marry her, and so become the king.
     The personal qualities or capacities of a prince or duke didn't matter as much as the people finding a successor on whom they could agree. If they refused to agree on a king, their country might have a civil war, making stable government impossible. The best way to keep the government intact was to have a male heir. As long as crowns were inherited, no one argued over who should be king--if the king left a son when he died.
     The story of the successors to Henry VIII's crown has an interesting twist. He went through 6 wives to get a son to inherit his kingdom. His son was still a child when he became king, and didn't live long. Then his oldest daughter inherited the crown and kept it for a couple of years of religious strife. When his younger daughter Elizabeth I became queen, she ended the religious strife, and governed England for decades still considered its "golden age". Elizabeth I never married, and is still called the "Virgin Queen". She insisted that if she married, her husband would be the king, and might outrank her, as in a deck of cards.
     If you would like to watch a miniseries about Henry VIII , you can look for "The Six Wives of Henry VIII" , from the BBC in the 1970's. There were six episodes, one for each wife.

vaccinations

     Vaccinations have been around for more than 200 years. They have eliminated some of the diseases that used to kill people. Every year, or every few years, there would be an outbreak of disease that would kill at least some of the people--especially children who hadn't been exposed to the disease before. Diseases for which we now have vaccinations--diptheria, tetanus, whooping cough, polio, measles, smallpox, typhus, cholera, and others--all killed people on a regular basis. These diseases are just as deadly today--they can kill people, or leave them blind, deaf, or physically disabled. So many people are vaccinated for these diseases that a real outbreak or epidemic probably could not happen--too many people would make a "brake" on the spread of the disease.
    A vaccination is a simple idea. The patient to be vaccinated is injected with some of the actually disease--but the disease is dead. The patient's own body then becomes immune to the disease by producing antibodies, using its own immune system. Since the disease is dead, the patient does not become sick.

auctions

     Auctions are not all that complicated, once you get used to the idea. You may be most familiar with auctions through ebay or another shopping site. If you place a bid on an item, and no one else places a higher bid, you have won the auction. You will be expected to buy the item and pay for it. If you have an item in mind that you want to buy, and you bid on it, you'll have to wait to see if you have won the auction before bidding on another of the same item--or you may win them both and be expected to buy both of them.
     One of the things people like about an auction is that you can't really spend more than you planned. If you bid on an item, for $5, say, and you lose, you didn't buy anything, and you don't owe anything.

am and pm

     You may be familiar with the terms "am and pm" as the name of a mini-mart, but the am and pm actually stand for something. A.M. stands for antemeridian, meaning before noon. So 8 am is 8 o'clock in the morning. P.M. stands for postmeridian, or after noon. So 8 pm is 8 o'clock in the evening.
     In the military, and in France, among other places, people are more used to telling time on a 24-hour clock--the kind used by some websites. Once you get used to it, you'll know that 17 o'clock is the same as 5 pm, or 5 o'clock in the evening ( just subtract 12 from any number greater than 12, and remember that it's after 12 noon ). So 23 o'clock is 11 pm..

sex-segregated schools

     A "sex-segregated school" means a school in which the males and females are separated--all boys in some classrooms, all girls in others. Many private and parochial ( catholic ) high schools are sex-segregated. Some private high school are all male, some are all female. Some others have males and females attending, but in different classrooms. These are sex-segregated.

secret ballot

     Even though many of us vote electronically now, we still call our method of voting a "secret ballot" system. A secret ballot was a piece of paper. Every voter was given a paper ballot, which he or she filled out and put in a box. The box had a slot in the top, and a lock on the front so that it couldn't be opened except to officially count the votes. No one knew who anyone else had voted for.
     We still don't know who has voted for which candidate--that is why voters must register and identify themselves. Since all of this is done before we vote, no one needs to know the details of any particular vote to make sure that an election is fair. Election officials will already know that each voter has voted only once.
     Secret ballot is important. When elections were public, pressure was often put on voters to vote with the more powerful party. Many people were afraid to vote for the candidate they actually preferred--they feared losing their jobs if their employer found out about their vote. They feared becoming unpopular. In some countries, they feared being arrested or imprisoned. Here in the United States, we don't need to fear reprisals for our votes--because of our secret ballot system.
    If you would like to see a movie about election fraud, you can watch the Hollywood classic The Great McGinty.
  

dropping out

     Some people still think they can "drop out" or "opt out " of society, like the hippies tried to do in the 1960's. The hippies never really "dropped out", which would have been nearly ( or entirely ) impossible, and I haven't heard of anyone really "dropping out" in the last few years--just talking about it. Society isn't made of governments, it's made of people. To really drop out of society would mean shunning all other people, including the work that they do and the benefits of the taxes they pay. A real drop out would have to give up not only TV and the internet, but roads, bridges,trains, planes, cars, grocery stores and all purchased food and clothing.
     Anyone who wants to "drop out " of society just doesn't want to be bothered with contributing to it, or helping to solve any of its problems. Add to the "drop-out" mentality the "more-enlightened than thou" mindset, and all you have is obnoxiousness. 

the details

For want of a nail, the shoe was lost
For want of the shoe, the horse was lost
For want of the horse, the rider was lost
For want of the rider, the message was lost
For want of the message, the battle was lost
For want of the battle, the war was lost
For want of the war, the kingdom was lost
All for the want of a horseshoe nail

point of view

     A "point of view" in the literary sense, means the point of view the author of a piece uses to tell the tale. Is the author or writer telling the story, or having one of the characters tell it?
     A work of fiction may be written in the "first person". The first person is "I", me, us, or "we". We use it to talk about ourselves. A person telling a story in the first person uses the word "I" or "we", and tells a story about what has happened to him or her. Non-fiction may also be written in the "first person". A letter might be written in this way, or an autobiography. A travel piece might also be written this way.
     The "second person" is you. We use the second person to talk to people. A set of instructions or directions might be written in the second person, but probably not a work of fiction.
     The "third person" is someone else--he, she, it, they, them, her, or him. We use the third person to talk about other people, or to write about them, whether fiction or non-fiction.

pro bono

     Pro bono is short for the Latin phrase pro bono publico, which means for the good of the public. Many years ago, if you didn't have enough money to pay a lawyer, you might have been able to convince one to take your case for free. Now we are all guaranteed a lawyer if we are accused of a crime, thanks to Gideon, of Gideon v. Wainwright
     Some cities have a public defender's office, staffed by lawyers hired by the city to represent defendants who cannot afford lawyers. In the absence of a public defender's office, lawyers take turns representing clients who can't pay them. They represent them pro bono publico, or in the public interest. We are all better off if courts are fair, and if people convicted of crimes are convicted fairly. No one can be expected to respect the courts if they are not fair, so our interest is served--the public interest--when every defendant has a lawyer to represent him or her.
     You can watch the story of Gideon v. Wainwright in the movie Gideon's Trumpet.
   

contingency fees

     Contingency fees are the fees we don't pay to a lawyer who agrees to take a case--a civil suit--on the chance of winning a settlement. If the lawyer or law firm wins a financial award from the corporation being sued, the lawyer or law firm keeps part of the money. The client doesn't have to pay anything in advance. You may see advertisements for law firms promising that you won't have to pay them anything unless they win a civil suit for you ( a civil suit is a suit over money, not crime--for example, when you fall on a wet floor and sue the owner of the building ). Contingency fees are legal, but the lawyer or law firm who wins a case for you on a contingency basis may insist on a fairly large portion of any settlement you receive.