A fine, patriotic hoax — the U.S.S. Pueblo

October 8, 2006

Commander Lloyd Bucher

Cmdr. Lloyd Bucher and the Pueblo on the cover of Time Magazine, February 2, 1968 (substituted for the official portrait of Bucher, which is no longer available)

A good hoax? It could happen, right?

It did happen.

A U.S. spy ship, the U.S.S. Pueblo, under the command of Cmdr. Lloyd Bucher, was captured by North Korea on January 28, 1968 — the beginning of a very bad year in the U.S. that included Viet Cong’s Tet Offensive that revealed victory for the U.S. in Vietnam to be a long way off, the assassination of the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., the assassination of presidential candidate Sen. Robert F. Kennedy, riots during the Democratic National Convention in Chicago, a bitter election — and a wonderful television broadcast from astronauts orbiting the Moon on Christmas Eve.

North Korea held the crew of the Pueblo for eleven months. While holding the crew hostage — there was never any serious thought that the ship had in fact strayed into North Korean territorial waters, which might have lent some legitimacy to the seizure of the ship — North Korea (DPRK) tried to milk the event for all the publicity and propaganda possible. Such use of prisoners is generally and specifically prohibited by several international conventions. Nations make a calculated gamble when they stray from international law and general fairness.

To their credit, the crew resisted these propaganda efforts in ways that were particularly embarrassing to the North Koreans. DPRK threatened to torture the Americans, and did beat them — but then would hope to get photographs of the Americans “enjoying” a game of basketball, to show that the Americans were treated well. The crew discovered that the North Koreans were naive about American culture, especially profanity and insults. When posing for photos, the Americans showed what they told DPRK was the “Hawaiian good luck sign” — raised middle fingers. The photos were printed in newspapers around the world, except the United States, where they were considered profane. The indications were clear — the crew was dutifully resisting their captors. When the hoax was discovered, the Americans were beaten for a period of two weeks. Read the rest of this entry »

39 Comments | 1968, Cold War, Heroes, History, History images, Hoaxes, Justice, Korea, veterans, Vietnam | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

Based on a true story — except, not Texas. Not a chainsaw. Not a massacre.

October 8, 2006

Nota bene: Be sure to see update, here.

First, there was the woman who squealed in class when I mentioned Travis County, the Texas county in which resides Texas’s capital city, Austin. She said later she had thought it was a fictional county. By the way, she asked, was the rest of the “Texas chainsaw massacre” story true, too? (I have never seen any of these movies; I understand the 2003 version was set in Hewitt, Texas, which is a real, small Texas town near Waco, between Dallas and Austin — but not in Travis County. I’m not sure what Travis County has to do with any of the movies.)

Logs awaiting processing at a sawmill in Nacogdoches County, Texas - Ron Billings photo

Victims of a real Texas chainsaw massacre: Victims await “processing” at a sawmill in Nacogdoches County. Photo by Ron Billings, Texas Forest Service.

Since then, in the last couple of weeks I have had at least a dozen requests to teach the history behind the movie, the “true story.” The movies are all highly fictionalized, I note. Perhaps I should plan a day to discuss real Texas murders, and just what fiction is, especially from Hollywood.

According to Snopes.com, one of my favorite debunking sites, there was never a Texas chainsaw massacre. There was a Wisconsin farmer who stole corpses from the local cemetery, and upon whom was based the earlier Alfred Hitchcock movie, Psycho. There was the chainsaw exhibit at Montgomery Ward seen by writer/director Toby Hooper, when he needed inspiration to finish a screen treatment. That’s about it.

But it’s nearing Halloween, and the studios in Hollywood hope to make money.

There are real Texas crimes that would be good fodder for movies, in the hands of intelligent and creative people. One wonders why more movies aren’t done on the real stories. Read the rest of this entry »

120 Comments | Accuracy, Bogus history, History, How do we know what we know, Movies, Texas | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

A good mentor

October 8, 2006

Teaching anywhere can be grueling.  Oh, sure, we do it for the great psychic rewards, kids growing up, students going on to do great things in the field, etc., etc.  But it’s a grind.  It’s a performance profession, but one in which the performer must do the writing and directing and producing, and on many days, rewriting while the cameras roll.  Turnover is high.

Which means that a good mentor is worth her weight in platinum or emeralds.  Saying the right thing to encourage any teacher to perform better is great, saying the right things to get a teacher to stick around . . .

So, this story is about a teacher mentor who did something dreadfully right.  May it occur more often, please.

At a blog called “all the standard catstrophes.”

2 Comments | Teaching | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

Another view of economics

October 7, 2006

I would dearly love to have Michael Perelman’s views on teacher pay and teachers’ unions. Perelman is an economist at California State University at Chico who does not mince opinions. His blog is called Unsettling Economics.

He doesn’t post a lot. Maybe he should post more.

Leave a Comment » | Economics, Teacher Pay | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

Education reform clips, and “new math” for vouchers

October 7, 2006

Interesting bunch of clips on education reform.

At Homeland Stupidity, a poster named Dana Hanley wonders if Bush is really proposing that we model our schools after China’s and India’s schools.

Hanley is direct:

There has been a 52% increase in spending on the key provision and an unprecedented amount of federal control taken over education. And all we have to show for it is trends that were evident before the act took effect? It isn’t worth the cost and it certainly isn’t worth the loss of our state’s rights in education.

Hanley writes strongly on the “qualified teacher” provisions of the “No Child Left Behind” Act, too. Read the rest of this entry »

1 Comment | Economics, Education reform, No Child Left Behind Act, Public education, School vouchers | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

Turning Point Presentations: Nixon’s “Checkers” speech

October 7, 2006

During one of my phase-shift transitions between universities and public schools yesterday, I caught a snippet of a commentary that I thought was on Richard Nixon’s 1952 speech that kept him on the ticket with Dwight Eisenhower. Public reaction was reported to be overwhelmingly warm, the Eisenhower-Nixon ticket won the 1952 election, won again in 1956, and Nixon eventually took the presidency for his own in 1968.

Shouldn’t that speech be considered one of the greater presentations of the 20th century, at least? It probably should, especially when we consider what history might have looked like had Nixon left the ticket — no Nixon nomination in 1960 against John Kennedy, no later Nixon presidency, Nixon continuing in the Senate . . . gee, which path is more gloomy?

The Checkers speech does not wear well, I think. Reading it today, I see the origins of smear campaign tactics and diversionary tactics that mar so much of today’s election campaigns and policy discussions.

This all comes up because the transcripts of the famous 1977 interview series newsman/comedian David Frost did with Nixon is the basis for a new play in London, “Frost/Nixon” by Peter Morgan, with Frank Langella playing Nixon and Michael Sheen as Frost — a play that is already being made into a movie for Universal Pictures by Academy Award winning director Ron Howard, but after a Broadway run in 2007.

Nixon’s mea culpa answer to Frost on the entirety of the Watergate scandal — “I made so many mistakes” — in the NPR piece voiced by Langella, sounded exactly like Nixon. I mistakenly thought it a recording of the Checkers speech, hearing just a snippet. The Frost/Nixon interviews would probably never have been necessary, had the Checkers speech not been a success. Surely there is a direct line from the Checkers speech to Nixon’s attempt to revive his reputation in the Frost interviews.

Watergate on Broadway, with a movie in the works, should offer good opportunities especially for high school history teachers to bring Watergate to a new generation. Too many people today fail to understand the depth of the damage done to Constitutional institutions in that crisis, and how lucky our nation was to have survived it. There are many lessons there for us in our current Constitutional crisis.

A lesson awaits, also, in the career of David Frost, who crossed from news to comedy and back. Many kids today use comedians as their chief source of political news. We should not be surprised — but let us hope that today’s comedians have as much a sense of public duty as David Frost did in 1977, even while using his public service interview to revive his own career.

Sometimes free markets work spectacularly, don’t they?

4 Comments | Ethics, Famous quotes, History, Lesson plans, Movies, Presentations, Presidents, Quotes, Turning Points, Watergate scandal | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

Hard Work (and cheating)

October 7, 2006

Good and careful consideration of cheating in school, especially with regard to different disciplines in college, in a post at Aude Sapere*. That post is well written, very thought provoking, and well worth the time one might spend on it. The figures are depressing, generally, but reflect a general view we hear from students too often — in an era when top government officials cheat to get what they want (think: why did we invade Iraq?), students often test to see whether we can detect their cheating, and to see what we’ll do about it.

The grand mystery to me is this: It’s generally more time consuming, and more difficult, to try to cheat, than it would be to learn the material well enough to pass my exams; why bother to cheat? The day that light dawns on a student is always a good day.

I am hopeful that part of the rise in confessed cheating is due to an increased sense of just what cheating is. Borrowing quote cards from a debate colleague is considered required sharing; using those same quote cards to put together a paper for another class — is that over the line? (I don’t regard it as cheating, but I’d be interested in hearing if you do.) Do today’s students consider that forbidden? Are today’s students more moral?

Short essays are a good way to get around most cheating, but short essays create grading nightmares that grow exponentially with the number of students.

What’s the solution?

Another blog takes a look at Florida legislation which, to me, is part of the cheating problem. Tony Whitson at AAACS Matters! calls for action against the Florida law which aims to avoid “interpretation” in teaching history, but which also dabbles in changing the facts of nature for biology study, and generally tends to politicize public school curriculum.

It seems to me that the Florida legislature is doing the same thing high school cheaters hope to do — when the facts are difficult or troubling, change them. High school kids can’t change certain facts of history that they do not want to bother to learn, but legislatures, with a great finger in the eye of history, learning and democracy, can try.

And, if presidents and state legislators can play fast and loose with the facts, why shouldn’t a high school student at least try to do the same? If our kids watch what we do, and not what we say, we may be in for several years of increased cheating.

    . .

* Aude sapere is Latin, a line from Kant; it means “dare to know.” I posted it over my classroom door for three years; only a few students ever asked about it. Each of them subsequently took up Kant’s challenge, either continuing their quest for knowledge in history or economics, or more often, taking up such a quest for the first time.

3 Comments | Accuracy, Current History, Curricula, Education, Ethics, Pedagogy, Plagiarism | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

Nobel successes hide science education problems

October 6, 2006

U.S. scientists swept the Nobel prizes in science this year — in Medicine or Physiology, in Chemistry, and in Physics. I noted earlier that I suspected most Nobel winners this year would, again, be products of public schools. (I have not yet got biographies of each winner to confirm that.)

Beneath the successes at the top simmers a lot of pending gloom, however. P. Z. Myers at Pharyngula points to concerns among science educators about a huge gap between our top achievers and the rest of us. He cites an Associated Press story, and it in turn calls up the 2002 survey by the National Science Foundation that found woeful ignorance of basic science stuff among U.S. kids and adults.

Basic research and practical applications of science drove U.S. economic achievement through the end of the 19th century and through most of the 20th century. China and India far outpace the U.S. in producing new engineers today, however, and European research centers simply have greater scientific capacity in many areas, especially since the end of the plans for a U.S. superconducting supercollider particle accelerator, more than a decade ago.

Rhodes Scholar, former U.S. Senator, NBA and NCAA basketball all-star Bill Bradley once said that it’s easier to get to the number 1 position than it is to stay there. The ascendancy of the U.S. in science and engineering achievement occurred decades ago. Without serious, planned work to stay there, some other nation will take over the lead in each area of science, probably within the next 20 years — perhaps within the next decade.

I’ll try to find links, but my memory brings up a couple of studies that show that in 4th grade, U.S. kids are at the head of the pack in science achievement. By 8th grade, they start to fall behind the leaders. By 12th grade, U.S. kids are far behind almost all kids in other industrialized nations. Something we do wrong between 4th grade and 12th grade is sapping the competitive ability of the nation. We need to fix it.

Dr. Myers has some suggestions well worth considering.

1 Comment | Education, Public education, Science, State school boards, TEKS | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

News about teacher pay

October 5, 2006

Last week Texas voters in Texarkana approved a pay raise for local teachers, according to the Texarkana Gazette.

Louisiana’s recent $1,500 annual teacher pay increase gets a ringing endorsement from Lafayette’s Daily Advertiser. In the editorial, the board lamented the poor ranking Louisiana has for teacher pay among all the states, and among states in the southern region, and said:

Such rankings have cost us good, experienced teachers who moved to other states to earn a decent living. They also have kept many bright young people from entering the teaching profession. It is more than coincidence that in conjunction with trailing Southern states in funding for education, Louisiana has led them in population loss. Through the years, the pitiful national ranking has convinced companies considering locating here that education is not a high priority in Louisiana.

The Tahoe Daily Tribune spotlights the controversy over raising teacher pay in the Lake Tahoe Unified School District, with the story of an experienced teacher simply unable to make ends meet while living in that district. While the teacher pay levels are about double those in Louisiana, the costs of living around Lake Tahoe are much higher, too.

Teacher pay continues to be a national problem, one district at a time.

Leave a Comment » | Education, Teacher Pay | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

Surprise! Hitler banned Darwin, instead of embracing evolution

October 4, 2006

Nick Matzke at the National Center for Science Education (NCSE) advised and coached the plaintiff’s lawyers in the Dover case, and in general has made himself useful tracking down the real history of creationism and intelligent design. He’s at it still, and over at Panda’s Thumb tavern he reports that, contrary to Coral Ridge Ministries’ D. James Kennedy’s claims that there is a direct connection from Darwin to Hitler, Darwin made the list of books banned, and perhaps burned, by the Nazis.

Matzke’s work raises serious issues with Richard Weikart’s claim, in From Darwin to Hitler, that there is a direct link.

Interesting reading. Go look.

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4 Comments | Accuracy, Creationism, Darwin, Evolution, World War II | Tagged: , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

Point of personal pique: Mitch Rasansky, stay away from my kids

October 4, 2006

This morning’s Dallas Morning News carries a sad story. Dallas City Councilman Mitchell Rasansky’s campaign against an Eagle Scout project finally bore fruit for Rasansky — he persuaded the city’s parks department to remove three bat houses which had been installed in a city park.

Rasansky first complained last spring. Irrationally, against all evidence, he said he thought the bat houses were a menace. When a storm of public opinion overwhelmed him, he backed off. The 70,000 or so Scouts and Scouters of Circle 10 Council relaxed, happy to know that the Eagle’s project was at work, reducing mosquitoes and, thereby, reducing the risks of West Nile virus.

Is it unfair to suggest Rasansky hates Boy Scouts? Probably. Is it unfair to suggest he’s mean and doesn’t let rationality get in the way of good public policy? I doubt it. Consider: 11 North Texans have died from West Nile virus already this year — 16 24 people have died across Texas — and Rasansky’s evidence of danger from the bats is a story of a rabid bat in Houston. One bat? One of the deaths from West Nile virus was an otherwise healthy young man who lived within a few hundred yards of my son at the University of Texas at Dallas. West Nile is not a minor problem around here.

Worse, Rasansky kept his actions secret this time. He got the bat houses removed without notice to the Scout who put them up, nor notice to anyone else concerned.
Some people told me Mitch Rasansky is really a nice guy, when this flap first arose last spring. I gave him the benefit of the doubt then. Not now.

Any man who favors West Nile virus over the public service project of an Eagle Scout has his priorities wrong at best, and is a menace to public health at worst. I don’t want a person running my town who can’t figure out that West Nile virus is a greater health hazard than bats.

Who is running against Rasansky? Arm that woman (or man) with some facts, and let the race begin, even though we’re months away from the election.

More information: See the Organization for Bat Conservation for more information about bats and their benefits.

Leave a Comment » | Accuracy, Ethics, Hoaxes, Politics | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

Ten best presentations – readers’ choice

October 3, 2006

KnowHR had a great post a while ago on the “ten best presentations ever,” mostly pertaining to IT and other technology. I noted it on this blog, and I also wrote in with some recommendations for other presentations that ought to be in a ten best presentations list.

Well, KnowHR has done another list of readers’ choices, including one of mine, perhaps the most controversial one.

It’s a useful list. Educators may want to make a special note of the presentation on creativity in education by Sir Ken Robinson.

Someone will always grouse about rankings of things that are difficult to compare, but I find that making such rankings is helpful to students in studying a subject, and such lists emphasize what is important to know when they refer to historical events. The rankings focus on two important facets: The effects of the event, which sometimes cascade over a great deal of time or great distances, and the relative importance of other events.

The Texas Education Agency ranks events in U.S. history, picking a eleven that are important enough students should know the dates by year. Here are the years; can you determine the events to be remembered?

  • 1607
  • 1776
  • 1787
  • 1803
  • 1861-1865
  • 1877
  • 1898
  • 1914-1918
  • 1929
  • 1941-1945
  • 1957
  • (and I would have sworn there was a date for the end of the Cold War, but I can’t find it just now at the TEA website . . . I list the date as 1991, the crumbling of the Soviet Union, which was officially dead at midnight, December 31, 1991) .

1957 stumped me a bit — which historic event was supposed to be the one Texas wanted? Once I learned the trick, I wondered whether 1969 wouldn’t have been a better choice.  (You can check out the link to figure out the event and the year — or pose the question in comments.)

In any case, check out the list at KnowHR. What’s been left off?

5 Comments | History, Lesson plans, Pedagogy, TEKS | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

Public school successes: Nobel Prizes

October 3, 2006

Let’s track the results this year.

Several years ago I noticed that the annual announcements of Nobel Prize winners demonstrated a remarkable trend:  A majority of the winners in one year were products of one educational institution, the public schools of the United States.

Elementary and secondary education is not always indicated in the prize announcements, so it often takes a bit more digging.  Nobel Prize announcements come out this week.  Yesterday the prizes for Medicine or Physiology went to two Americans, both under 50.  Today the prizes in Physics went to two more Americans.

If you see a note talking about the elementary and secondary schooling of these people, would you send it along?  These prizes may indicate the health of the schools 20 or 30 years ago — but that would put it at the same time we were talking about “a rising tide of mediocrity.”  It’s a long-after-the-fact measure, but an interesting one (to me, anyway).

Year in and year out, public school alumni win most of the Nobel Prizes awarded since World War II.  How long can such a trend of success continue?

(I’m keeping quiet about the other trend.  The iRNA research is steeped in evolution theory; the COBE work for which the physics prize was awarded confirms the Big Bang.  Young Earth creationists especially must be hoping for other news to hide this research from general public understanding.)

Leave a Comment » | Public education | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

History at the State Fair of Texas

October 1, 2006

Mr. Fletcher and the Fletcher Corny Dog site

Care for a corny dog? Fletcher’s State Fair Corny Dogs are the original cornmeal-wrapped hotdog on a stick — invented in 1942 for sale at the State Fair of Texas, by Carl and Neil Fletcher, and still a mainstay. This year you may also purchase deep fried Snickers bars, and deep fried Coca Cola from other vendors. (Photo from BigTex.com)

This is the third day of the 24-day run of the State Fair of Texas. State fairs are loaded with history, generally — but it’s not easy to extract it from some of the fairs. Looking over the program for the Texas Fair, it’s difficult to find something that a Texas history teacher might recommend as a site students ought to see. Oh, the life-size sculpture of Marilyn Monroe, in butter, is a great achievement as temporary art in dairy products goes, but it’s not something that particularly edifies students on the stuff they need to know for Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills (TEKS).

An alert kid might learn something about ranching in Texas, which is part of the TEKS. The State Fair features the Texas Heritage Hall of Honor. “The Hall recognizes individuals distinguished by their significant contributions to agriculture and ranching in Texas,” the website says. Since 1992 inductions have been made to honor people significant in agriculture and ranching. 44 people have been inducted, including those who assembled some of the great, legendary ranches in the state.

There are several museums on the fairgrounds — the African-American Museum, a railroad museum, the Dallas Museum of Natural History and the Dallas Science Museum, the Dallas Aquarium, the Texas Women’s Museum, and a spectacular water garden.

Are there other sites Texas history students ought to see? Please note your favorites in comments. Or tell about your own state fair, please.

2 Comments | Current History, History, Texas | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

Anti-First Amendment propaganda infects MSM

October 1, 2006

Conservatives complain constantly that “mainstream media” (or “MSM” as it is usually abbreviated in right-wing blogs, derisively) are biased to the left. That’s much contrary to my experience, as a reporter, as a PR flack, and as a consumer of news.

I do expect a striving for balance, however. So I was surprised to find, in an on-line test of American history and government at the site of Newsweek Magazine, that conservative misinformation about religious freedom had crept into “MSM.” A poster, Bernarda, pointed to the poll in comments to an earlier post.

When I saw this question, I rather expected Newsweek might have made the turn to the right — but I answered as the law is anyway. As you can see from what I copied off the answer screen, below, Newsweek’s poll said the legal answer is wrong:

 

2. The idea that in America there should be a “wall of separation” between church and state appears in:

  
 

The Constitution is not correct.
Thomas Jefferson’s letters
—Percentage of seniors who scored correctly: 27.2 percent

The idea that there should be a wall of separation between church and state was rather carefully and ambitiously developed in law by George Mason, Thomas Jefferson and James Madison in Virginia, starting in 1776 with the Virginia Bill of Rights, and perhaps climaxing in 1786 when Madison engineered the passage of Jefferson’s Statute for Religious Freedom (one of the three things Jefferson thought noteworthy for his tombstone, above even his two-terms as president), and continuing through the adoption of the Bill of Rights. Read the rest of this entry »

2 Comments | 1776, America's founding, First Amendment, History Revisionism, Religious Freedom, U.S. Constitution | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

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