Wow. This looks great. I’m blown away by the art and the story sounds engaging.

I was just looking into building an RSS feed to escape social media. This list is perfect! Thank you.

Over slept.

Before the internet, Cliff Notes were popular books that summarized and provided insight into meaning for classical literature. Students used them in place of reading the actual book.

Probably comes from a combination of belief in American exceptionalism, tradition, and either popular opinion remains with reciting the pledge or a lack desire to change.

States are managed individually for the most part and only 47/50 still require reciting the pledge (with some exceptions). Without a call for change from the people, it would be political suicide for any lawmaker to come out for a change like this. Opponents could use this decision as a claim of lack of patriotism.

The context of the origin of the US’ pledge of allegiance is it came shortly after the end of their Civil War when there was still a lot o political tension. A desire was born to instill national loyalty in children.

“Historians point to surges in American patriotic oaths and pledges to the flag after the Civil War, when tensions surrounding political loyalties persisted, and in the 1880s, as rates of immigration increased dramatically”

However, today as mentioned by another commenter, students cannot be legally compelled to recite the pledge, nor punished for not reciting the pledge as decided by the Supreme Court in 1943 using the first amendment as the base.

Homelessness

I store mine between my phone and phone case.