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Culture War Roundup for the week of September 15, 2025

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Since G is right next to H, my first response to learning this information was, "The author of A People's History of the United States happened to be there and also decided to, in the moment by snap decision, run interference for the assassin!?" Of course, Howard and George are different names. Basic research doesn't reveal any relation between those 2, but I hope it comes out that it's his nephew or cousin or something. Would make this timeline that much more dank, or whatever the kids these days are saying.

Looked into it for a few minutes and nah.

This guy's full name is listed in some reports as George Hodgson Zinn, an obnoxious person from Salt Lake City https://www.theblaze.com/news/who-is-the-71-year-old-man-detained-after-charlie-kirk-shooting-who-police-say-is-not-a-suspect

I'm fairly confident he's related to https://www.deseret.com/1997/7/29/19326549/death-norma-hodgson-zinn-simmons/ I initially thought this was his grandmother, but real chance she is mother if she gave birth in her late 40s. Could just be that this character is George Hodgson Zinn jr and the reports left that out. A brief account by a person named George Zinn regarding their father Overton- https://www.up.com/heritage/history/stories/families/true-up-man-zinn/index.htm

So I'm pretty sure this guy is coming from a Utah Mormon family.

Howard Zinn's parents were Ellis Island Jewish immigrants to NYC.

Zinn means "tin" in German, so not extremely rare name for Jews or Gentiles whose ancestors held that profession when adopting a surname.

So I'm pretty sure this guy is coming from a Utah Mormon family.

He was adopted at an age of 19 months from a Greek orphanage into a Utah Mormon family.

It's not super common, but it's not all that weird for Mormons in my lived experience. My mother was a fifth child adopted from a local hospital, I have two cousins adopted from Kazakhstan, a cousin from a different side adopted from Ukraine (one of the very literally very last actually), and I've heard of a few other cases besides.

Appreciate that, could you link me to where you found that?

Appreciate it! Well, he's definitely weird. Not unheard of for families with 4 daughters 0 surviving sons to adopt a boy historically.

A brief account by a person named George Zinn regarding their father Overton

Of window fame, no doubt

If so, would have been a family split over Mormonism that isn't easily found online.

I looked into https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Overton the eponymous describer of the political window, who was a libertarian who died in a light aircraft crash 22 years ago. Family moved from New York to Michigan in the 1850s, though some served Union in Civil War in New York units. He is related to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hall_Overton and his son https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rick_Overton

I thought the same thing at first, had to re-read the first paragraph like 3 times.