10 political regions that make up the U.S.

November 12, 2006

CommonWealth is a magazine of Massachusetts politics and policy. In their latest issue they feature an article by Robert David Sullivan which argues the U.S. should be viewed as having ten distinct political regions. In “Beyond Red and Blue,” Sullivan argues that a savvy candidate for president can win by paying attention to the real issues that unite the people in these regions into sizable voting blocs.

The fun part of the piece is the map that accompanies it, though (here I use the Boston Globe’s version — I couldn’t get CommonWealth to link).
Beyond Red and Blue map

This map runs contrary to a lot of political thought.  The west Florida coast residents don’t think of themselves as having much in common with the residents of Waco, Texas, for example — but this map shows them voting together.

There is much grist for thought in this map, and in the accompanying article.

It’s the old press guy coming out in me, but I can’t help but notice that many of these political regions are splintered in media markets.  It would be very difficult to devise a strategy to advertise to an entire region.

Of course, if you’re running for president and you need someone who can devise the strategy for targeting these markets, I’m available!  (I do have a good track record, too — my first big client just won his 6th term in the U.S. Senate.)

Tip of the scrub brush to Strange Maps.

Leave a Comment » | Politics | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

Help tell the story of Iraq veterans

November 12, 2006

I stumbled on an interesting film project, to tell the story of Iraq veterans readjusting to life in the U.S. after duty in Iraq. On this day after Veterans’ Day, you may be looking for ways to honor vets. Donating to the completion of this movie is one way. You be the judge.

The film’s working title is “Reserved to Fight,” focusing on one of the first Army Reserve units called to duty in Iraq, and what happens to four of the members of the unit upon their return. The unit is Fox Company, 2nd Battalion, 23rd Marines, whose home is Salt Lake City, Utah. The film’s director is Chantelle Squires, a film student at Brigham Young University. Film production classes there are generally top-notch. The project will be well done, and the content should be compelling in almost any production.

We need not wait for a latter-day Clint Eastwood to chronicle these events 50 years from now, as he has done for veterans of Iwo Jima in the film Flags of Our Fathers.  (See my earlier posts here, and here.) I hope to see more efforts to record this war’s history, in any medium.

Tip of the old scrub brush to Utah Boy.

6 Comments | Current History, History, History video sources, Iraq, War | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

Education issues in the election

November 7, 2006

According to the Washington Post, education was on the ballot in a number of states on November 7. Here is a rundown of the issues, to be updated as we learn results. Latest update: November 12. See below the fold.

Below the fold, states with their education initiatives are listed in alphabetical order. Read the rest of this entry »

Leave a Comment » | Education, Education spending, Public education, State school boards | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

Lange photos of Japanese internment show a different light

November 7, 2006

Unpublished photos of the internment of U.S. citizens of Japanese ancestry during World War II were found in the National Archives.

Japanese Americans line up at Tanforan Assembly Center

Dorothea Lange took the photos, but they were forgotten in the archives — they did not show the view that the government wanted to be shown, some speculate, and so were not widely disseminated.

The pictures are being published for the first time, in Impounded:  Dorothea Lange and the Censored Images of Japanese American Internment (W. W. Norton).

The New York Times carried some of the photos and a story about the book.

Lange, who died in 1965, showed families who had abandoned their homes and property. Because they couldn’t bring their belongings with them, they were often forced to sell them to speculators at reduced prices. In harrowing images that uncomfortably echo the Nazi round-ups of Jews in Europe, Lange’s photographs document long, weaving lines of well-dressed people, numbered tags around their necks, patiently waiting to be processed and sent to unknown destinations.

“There is no way to really know how much they lost,” Mr. Okihiro said in an interview, but he cited a 1983 study commissioned by a Congressional committee estimating that, adjusted for inflation and interest, internees had lost $2.5 billion to $6.2 billion in property and entitlements. Mr. Okihiro writes that one man, Ichiro Shimoda, was so distraught he tried to commit suicide by biting off his own tongue. When that failed, he tried to asphyxiate himself. Finally he climbed a camp fence, and a guard shot him to death.

Another man, Kokubo Takara, died after being forced to stand in line in the rain as a disciplinary measure at Sand Island in Hawaii. At assembly points in Hawaii, Mr. Okihiro writes, some detainees were forced to strip naked and had their body cavities searched.

Upon arrival at the assembly centers — including the Tanforan Assembly Center in San Bruno, Calif., a former racetrack — the internees passed through two lines of soldiers with bayonets trained on them. Lange was not allowed to photograph the soldiers, but she did manage some stark images of the horse stalls where the families lived, pictures that are included in the book.

18 Comments | Bill of Rights, Civil Rights, History, Japanese American internment, Patriotism, World War II | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

News coverage of “new” flag ceremony for Air Force

November 6, 2006

Las Vegas Review-Journal photo of two Airmen folding a U.S. flag

Inside the Thunderbirds Hangar at Nellis AFB, Airman 1st Class Michael Thayer, left, and Senior Airman David Prye demonstrate how to fold a U.S. flag. Photo by John Gurzinski, Las Vegas Review-Journal [Replacement photo]

[Sad, but the Las Vegas Review-Journal appears to have taken down this story and photo] Photo by John Gurzinski from the Las Vegas Review-Journal: Inside Thunderbirds Hangar at Nellis AFB, Airman 1st Class Michael Thayer, left, and Senior Airman David Prye demonstrate how to fold a U.S. flag.

Inside Thunderbirds Hangar at Nellis AFB, Airmen Michael Thayer & David Prye fold US flag

Airman First Class Michael D’Ancona and Senior Airman Assad Pharr demonstrated how to properly fold an American flag during a special visit to Robbins Lane Elementary School in Syosset on May 23. (Syosset-Jericho Tribune, June 19, 2014; photo added here October 2014)

Airman First Class Michael D’Ancona and Senior Airman Assad Pharr demonstrated how to properly fold an American flag during a special visit to Robbins Lane Elementary School in Syosset on May 23. (Syosset-Jericho Tribune, June 19, 2014; photo added here October 2014)

How did I miss this? The Las Vegas (Nevada) Review-Journal carried a story on July 4, 2006, on the Air Force’s efforts to replace the old, unofficial and misleading flag folding ceremony, with a new one. It has the script for the new ceremony.

The newspaper said:

Capt. Isham Barrett, Air Force action officer on Honor Guard policy, said the new script was developed because reference to the flag in the U.S. code “does not associate anything with any fold of the flag.”

“We don’t want to force a belief on somebody,” he said.

Barrett said the decision to develop a standardized script wasn’t prompted by someone complaining about religious connotations. “We can’t find anything in our files with regard to complaints,” he said.

Nevertheless, Christopher J. Andersen, an Army sergeant and member of the Military Association of Atheists and Freethinkers, wrote a letter in 2003, asking the U.S. Air Force Academy to remove the unofficial script from its Web site.

“In order to ensure this religious flag-folding ceremony is not portrayed as an official, government-sponsored flag-folding ceremony, I ask you to remove it from your .gov site,” wrote Andersen.

Andersen, who could not be reached last week, noted in his letter that the Air Force Academy removed the old script from its Web site after he complained.

Air Force leaders later set out to develop a script based on history rather than one that could be interpreted as contrary to the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion.”

Combined with the Free Exercise Clause — “or prohibiting the free exercise thereof” — they prohibit endorsement of a national religion or a preference for one over another. They also preclude dominance of religion over nonreligious philosophies, according to a 1994 Supreme Court majority opinion.

The new standardized script based on history was approved by Air Force leaders in July 2005 and first appeared in revised Honor Guard protocol manuals in January.

Three cheers for the Air Force (yes, I’m biased, for family reasons).

Tip of the old scrub brush to Linda Case.

Update October 22, 2014:  The new, Air Force-approved script for a flag folding ceremony is at the Betsy Ross site.  Use it in good patriotic spirit, and in the spirit of accurate history.

9 Comments | Accuracy, Flag etiquette, History, Patriotism | Tagged: , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

Pre-election Carnival of Education

November 5, 2006

Just in time for the November 2006 local, state and national elections, we get the Carnival of Education #91, over at Median Sib.

One indication that this is not a normal election year is this fact: Education is not the chief issue in any state, nor in most local races. With the release of the Fordham Foundation study last week that showed education reform is foundering and floundering, with the great difficulty in Texas in getting court-ordered education reform through the legislature, with record college tuition costs, etc., etc., etc., education still is not the top concern of most Americans.

I wonder: Were education the top issue, would Republicans be in better shape, or worse shape?

Textbooks are in the news — with a solid legal and ethical question about whether accepting equipment to deliver material to students amounts to bribery, as California alleges (in a post at California LiveWire). It’s an incredibly salient question. The U.S. Department of Education used to leverage its limited budget for automation by requiring groups that provided computer services for which the department contracted to provide the department with computers to monitor the products. When I discovered the practice I thought it a very innovative way to get compliance with the law; unless the California officials were using the equipment for their own gain, I wonder how any state official can justify removing from the classroom machines that are used to deliver quality education. Where is the Gubernator when he’s needed?

Next week’s Carnival of Education will hit the day after the elections; will it reflect changes wrought on Tuesday night, if any? The 92nd Carnival of Education will be hosted by NYC Educator. Submissions are due Tuesday night — of course, you’re excused if you’re out at the election party, celebrating. (Notice how cleverly that applies regardless your politics — or mine.)

Leave a Comment » | Current History, Education, Education reform, Politics, Public education, State school boards | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

Newly found: Teaching Carnival #15

November 3, 2006

Blog post compilations known as “carnivals” continue to proliferate.

I stumbled into this one:  15th Teaching Carnival.  It’s hosted this time by New Kid on the Hallway.

Among other ways it differs from education carnivals, it has a distinct focus on grading and other details of teaching life, this time.

Leave a Comment » | Education, Education blogs, Teaching | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

NOW they tell us: Education reform not working

November 2, 2006

Yesterday I wondered about the effect of next Tuesday’s elections on education and education reform.

Last night I discovered the Fordham Foundation published a new study showing that “half of states miss the bus on education reform.”

Say what? One week before the election?

Fordham Foundation’s President Chester E. Finn, Jr., was a high-ranking official in a Republican administration, true, but that was after working closely with Democrat Daniel Patrick Moynihan for years. I doubt the study was published with any intent to affect the election at all.

It’s well worth the reading, though.

A new report from the Thomas B. Fordham Foundation finds that just eight states can claim even moderate success over the past 15 years at boosting the percentage of their poor or minority students who are at or above proficient in reading, math or science.

The study also finds that most states making significant achievement gains-including California, Delaware, Florida, New York, Massachusetts, and Texas-are national leaders in education reform, indicating that solid standards, tough accountability, and greater school choice can yield better classroom results.

“Many state officials have claimed credit for gains in student achievement,” said Chester E. Finn, Jr., the Foundation’s president. “But this study casts doubt on many such claims. In reality, no state has made the kind of progress that’s required to close America’s vexing achievement gaps and help all children prepare for life in the 21st Century. Nor are most states making the bold reforms most likely to change this reality. Real leaders will study these data, then focus on what needs doing, not what’s been done.”

The Fordham Report 2006: How Well Are States Educating Our Neediest Children? appraises each state according to thirty indicators across three major categories: student achievement for low-income, African-American, and Hispanic students; achievement trends for these same groups over the last 10-15 years; and the state’s track record in implementing bold education reforms. (Click here for more information on the indicators and methodology http://www.edexcellence.net/doc/TFR06Methodology.pdf.) A table listing states’ performance in all three categories is at http://www.edexcellence.net/foundation/global/page.cfm?id=388#TFR06fullstategrades.

And, one week before this year’s election, it is not too early at all to start thinking about the next elections, and how to use the results of this report.

3 Comments | Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP), Education, Education reform, Leadership, No Child Left Behind Act, Public education, School vouchers, Testing | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

Adam Smith’s £20 of fame

November 2, 2006

Adam Smith will replace composer Edward Elgar on the twenty-pound note next spring, according to the Bank of England.

Adam Smith's pin factory example, in a drawing

Adam Smith’s pin factory will also be featured on the new twenty-pound note.

So Smith gets his twenty-pounds of fame, a slight twist on Andy Warhol’s observation that everybody would get 15 minutes of fame in the future.*

The story in the Times Online is actually a much better feature on Adam Smith than is available in most of the high school economics books today. A major failing of the texts: They do not feature stories on the economists who make economics tick. Advanced Placement texts are better, but still there is room for improvement. My experience in the classroom is that the lives of the economists provide inspiration and, quite often, quirky historical anchors that help students understand and recall key points of economics. For most high school economics students, such enrichment comes only with the teacher’s providing it apart from the texts and other state- or district-provided materials.

Read the rest of this entry »

1 Comment | 1776, Adam Smith, Economics, Education, Freedom - Economic | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

Elections’ effects on education

November 1, 2006

Tuesday’s elections may have little effect in some places, like Massachusetts, but other places may see significant changes due to the changes in legislative personnel (see Texas, where the chairman of the Senate education committee has already been defeated, in the primaries), or due to bond issues or other education-related referenda.

I’ve been out educating, and I’m almost completely out of touch on just what is at stake, where. If you have an education issue pending in your state in one way or another, how about dropping a comment and letting us know?

Leave a Comment » | Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP), Education, Education reform, Education spending, State school boards | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

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