Free Republic

Strong belief in heaven likely was one of the factors that made the Civil War so long and so bloody, public historian Barbara Franco says. “It made people more tolerant of death,” she explained in a recent telephone interview. Dying in the 19th century was compared to passing through a curtain and reuniting with family members on the other side. That belief made soldiers and civilians more willing to accept the unprecedented number of casualties from disease and combat during the nation’s most catastrophic conflict, she said.

Smack in the middle of where a D.C. developer hopes to build apartments on the Forest Hills-Chalfant border stands a small brick building adorned with a towering steel orb. The four-story weathered object, which resembles a giant light bulb, is the genesis of the Westinghouse Electric Corp.'s foray into nuclear power — a 1937 van de Graaff particle accelerator, the world's first industrial atom smasher. “Westinghouse was really in the vanguard of nuclear power,” said Cynthia Kelly, president of the Washington-based Atomic Heritage Foundation. “It's great that they kept (the accelerator.) It's a great piece of history.” Gary Silversmith thinks...

Natural gas pipeline companies have been Dorothy Ganiear's neighbor in Greene County for as long as she can remember. Pipelines from two companies poke out from the ground in twisting interchanges just over a grassy hillside from her family's 100-acre farm, but noise or accidents never have been a problem, Ganiear said. So when Virginia-based Dominion Resources Inc. offered her money this year to allow the company to run another pipeline under a corner of her Morgan Township property, Ganiear, 61, was happy to help. This is what we all have to live with in order to get the natural...

I am a lead pencil—the ordinary wooden pencil familiar to all boys and girls and adults who can read and write. Writing is both my vocation and my avocation; that's all I do. You may wonder why I should write a genealogy. Well, to begin with, my story is interesting. And, next, I am a mystery—more so than a tree or a sunset or even a flash of lightning. But, sadly, I am taken for granted by those who use me, as if I were a mere incident and without background. This supercilious attitude relegates me to the level of...

On the heels of a recent Sunday magazine profile of Glenn Beck, The New York Times published a roundtable discussion among six scholars on the issue of President Woodrow Wilson. Wilson has become a popular Beck target and has suddenly emerged as a hot topic in our current politics. "I hate Woodrow Wilson!" shouted Beck at February's Conservative Political Action Conference in Washington. For the record, I was at that gathering, and I'm a conservative, I like Beck and I don't hate Wilson. My take on Wilson, however, is very different from what I'm hearing from Beck or from scholars...

U.S. Rep. Jason Altmire will vote against the health care bill when the House votes in the next few days, despite weeks of personal entreaties from President Obama and Democratic House leaders, he said today. Altmire, D-McCandless, was considered an important swing vote for House leaders who are trying to attract 216 supporters for the signature domestic initiative of Obama's presidency. Altmire voted against a previous health care bill last year ,and as the climactic vote on this Senate bill approaches, he has been buffeted by protests for and against the plan, intense lobbying in Congress and two visits to...

During 38 years as a traffic cop, Cianca's combination of dance moves, genuflections and exaggerated facial expressions made him a Pittsburgh — indeed, national — icon when "Candid Camera" creator Allen Funt got permission to secretly film him while directing traffic Downtown, then aired the graceful and often hilarious scenes in a 1964 episode. "It was a favorite of my dad's and the viewers," said Peter Funt, who took over for his father as host of the TV show. "If you'd ask my dad when he was alive, 'Allen, what are a couple of your favorites from Candid Camera?' he...

Pennsylvania historians announced plans Tuesday to mark the 150th anniversary of the Civil War with a statewide commemoration. "The Pennsylvania Civil War 150 commemoration is far more than a formal remembrance," said Barbara Franco, executive director of the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission. "It is a collection of stories brought to life that are as epic as the fields of Gettysburg and as small as the struggles of a soldier's wife working to survive her husband's absence on a Pennsylvania farm." The early kickoff of the Civil War program is primarily a call for participation to state residents and historical...

People love Doris Kearns Goodwin's book on the Lincoln presidency, "Team of Rivals." More important, for this moment in American history, Barack Obama loves it. The book is certainly fun to read. But its claim that Abraham Lincoln revealed his "political genius" through the management of his wartime Cabinet deserves a harder look, especially now that it seems to be offering a template for the new administration. "Lincoln basically pulled in all the people who had been running against him into his Cabinet," is the way Obama has summarized Goodwin's thesis, adding, "Whatever personal feelings there were, the issue was...

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Columbia, S.C., April 2, 2008 - South Carolina Electric & Gas Company (SCE&G), principal subsidiary of SCANA Corporation (NYSE: SCG) announced that an agreement has been reached with Westinghouse Electric Company and The Shaw Group Inc. (NYSE: SGR), authorizing the purchase of long-lead-time materials for up to two new Westinghouse AP1000 nuclear electric generating units. “This keeps us on schedule if we are to build new nuclear generation and have a plant online by 2016,” said Kevin Marsh, president of SCE&G. “We’re pleased that after more than two years of diligent work, we’re able to achieve this milestone. Our...

In his book Responsible Dominion, Ian Hore-Lacy explores the concept of sustainable development according to his interpretation of the word of a Christian God. “In the beginning God created the heavens and the Earth. The Earth with its moon was part of the solar system of planets revolving around the sun… The sun was a source of much of the world’s energy… The Earth was endowed with many minerals as part of its geological structure, which was good… Then, having bounteously equipped the world with every imaginable resource, in abundance, God said ‘let us make humans in our image, in...

For those who do not know the "older definition" of the term 'Chicken Hawk,' it was at one time the term for homosexuals who had a penchant for young, (underage) boys. I received a flyer in the mail today from an organization called Vote Kids (votekids.org) that attacks Rick Santorum as being anti children. On a cursory investigation of this organization, I found more questions than answers. The flyer is typical of many this season (frankly from both sides) full of misstatements and distortions. It accuses Santorum and Bush of being "Weapons of Mass Destruction" and harming children. I went...

It's funny how a small "English Only" sign at a sandwich shop in Philadelphia has caused such "fainting couch vapors" among the PC crowd and makes national news, while just 300 miles West the very large outdoor sign at a suburban Pittsburgh restaurant seen by thousands every day driving busy US Route 30, hardly raises an eye brow. If the Philadelphia sigs are PG rated for the politically correct set, these Pittsburgh signs are without a doubt, Tripple X.

If plagiarism is the sincerest form of flattery, then Russian President Vladimir Putin has made two University of Pittsburgh professors blush. Researchers at the Brookings Institution, a private nonprofit corporation in Washington, D.C., recently discovered that Putin copied significant chunks of a 1978 textbook by Pitt professors William R. King and David I. Cleland and passed it off as his own for his mid-1990s economic dissertation. "One is always pleased when one's work is found to be useful, but it's a little disappointing when one's work is found to be represented as someone else's," said King, a professor at Pitt's...

Lynn Swann appeared to secure the Republican Party endorsement for governor last night as he defeated former Lt. Gov. Bill Scranton in a vote of state committee members from the southwest corner of the state. Going into last night's vote, which he won, 33-23, Mr. Swann had already secured the support of at least 169 of the 180 state committee members needed to win the endorsement. The full state committee will vote on the endorsement next month in Harrisburg.

When you hear the phrase "the war that made America," that war should be pretty obvious. The Revolutionary War first comes to mind. If not, it's got to be the Civil War, which forged America as the modern industrial superpower in its fires. Strike two. "The War That Made America," WQED's four-part, $13-million-plus documentary refers to the French and Indian War, which the filmmakers contend had an impact far larger than once thought, and set the stage for the Revolution. But aside from "Last of the Mohicans," for most Americans, the French and Indian War is as dense and mysterious...

Rachel Carson, a driving force behind the modern environmental movement, grew up in a modest homestead in Springdale Borough near the Allegheny River. For the budding marine biologist, the river's waters were an early inspiration. Now, more than four decades after Ms. Carson's death, her presence may return to those waters. Allegheny County Council tomorrow will consider renaming the Ninth Street Bridge in her honor. If the resolution is approved, Ms. Carson would join Roberto Clemente and Andy Warhol as namesakes for the three Downtown "Sister Bridges" that cross the Allegheny. "This is long overdue," said Esther L. Barazzone, president...

Sixty years ago the Manhattan Project carried out its first test of a secret weapon, forged from a metal first detected in sub-microgram amounts fewer than five years before. By David FishlockOn Thursday 12 July 1945 a US Army sedan drove Philip Morrison the 210 miles from Los Alamos to Alamagordo with the plutonium core of the world’s first nuclear weapon on his lap. At dawn four days later the priceless hemispheres the physicist had helped forge, then assembled, vanished in the highly successful Trinity nuclear test. The scientists who witnessed the test estimated the energy released equivalent to 18,600t...

MARTINSBURG, W.Va. -- Tears well in Cathy Fraley's eyes as she tries to explain what this Super Bowl experience means. She is sitting at the kitchen table in her duplex, flanked by her husband, "Big Hank," a bear of a man whose buoyant personality belies the fact that he is just a few months removed from a six-hour operation that extracted a golf ball-sized tumor from his skull. The wall behind Cathy Fraley doubles as a shrine to the family's proud and tragic military history. Big Hank's father fought in World War I. Big Hank and his only brother, Clayton,...

U.S. troops found thousands of boxes of white powder, nerve agent antidote and Arabic documents on how to engage in chemical warfare at an industrial site south of Baghdad. But a senior U.S. official familiar with initial testing said the materials were believed to be explosives. Col. John Peabody, engineer brigade commander of the 3rd Infantry Division, said the materials were found Friday at the Latifiyah industrial complex just south of Baghdad. "It is clearly a suspicious site," Peabody said. CBS News National Security Correspondent David Martin reports that the hunt for weapons of mass destruction continues at sites where...