June 19, 2007
The contemptible campaign of hoax and calumny against the work and memory of Rachel Carson continues. You should read more at the sites I cite near the end of this post.
The key false claim of the Carson critics is that, but for the ban on DDT, millions of lives would have been saved over the past 30 years. Chief problem with the claim is that national bans on DDT all preserve DDT use for essential mosquito eradication, especially if there are no other tools to fight the disease. But other problems with the claim include the fact that DDT had stopped being highly effective by the late 1960s; eradication was a pipe dream, and mosquitoes developed resistance to DDT.
That doesn’t stop the critics. So, Dear Reader, when you read criticisms of Rachel Carson and hear the pseudo-science whine that Carson alone has condemned millions to death by malaria, I want you to keep in mind this question: If DDT were such an effective tool against malaria, why didn’t the World Health Organization fight to keep it? Why didn’t the manufacturers fight to keep it? Why would more than 150 nations, tens of thousands of scientists, tens of thousands of health workers, and conservative “I-told-you-so” skeptics who hate environmentalists, all simultaneously fall asleep?
The answer is, Dear Reader, they didn’t all fall asleep. DDT stopped being effective, and malaria fighters realized there were other problems — the parasites that the mosquitoes spread also became resistant to anti-malaria drugs, a bigger problem than DDT resistance. People and organizations who fight malaria did ask that use of DDT be preserved for spraying to fight malaria; but they didn’t defend it against bans on other use because those bans help the malaria fighters.
Cover of Saving Lives, Buying Time: Economics of Malaria Drugs in an Age of Resistance (2004), from the National Academies Press
Below the fold, I offer two quotes from Saving Lives, Buying Time: Economics of Malaria Drugs in an Age of Resistance (2004) Board on Global Health (BGH) (available from the National Academy of Sciences). You can see that DDT is not the golden-egg-laying goose, and that consequently Rachel Carson is not the mindless ogre she is made out to be in recent invectives.
Check out these sites:
- Bug Girl’s Blog, “DDT, Junk Science, and the attack on Rachel Carson;” “DDT, Junk Science, and Malaria Resistance;” “Malarial Resistance: Exciting new development;” “Rachel Carson and Chemical News;” “New York Times, DDT, and an a–hole“
- Laelaps, “Something stinks over at National Geographic;”
- Deltoid, “Hundreds of Millions Killed by Rachel Carson;” “Creationists Claim Rachel Carson Killed Millions;” “The Rachel Carson Telephone Game;” “Reaction to Tierney’s Bad Science;” “John Tierney’s Bad Science;” “Raw Story Follows the Money on Rachel Carson Smears;” “Taking Aim at Rachel Carson” (describing the unsavory sources of the campaign against Carson)
- Rabbet Run, “Who Ordered That?“
- Obsidian Wings, “Junk Science: DDT“
Read the rest of this entry »
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Accuracy, Africa, Bogus history, DDT, Green Politics, Hoaxes, Public health, Rachel Carson, Research, Science, Voodoo history, Voodoo science | Tagged: Africa, Bogus history, DDT, Green Politics, Hoaxes, Malaria, Science | 
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Posted by Ed Darrell
June 19, 2007
Barry Commoner turned 90 on May 28. He is profiled in The New York Times Science section on June 19, 2007 (if your local newspaper has a science section half as good, I’d love to hear about it). Commoner is a plant physiologist and great eminence at Washington University in St. Louis for 34 years, now at Queens College. He was a key informant of public opinion during the rise of ecological awareness in the 1960s and 1970s, probably the nation’s best known “ecologist.”
In 1980 he helped found the Citizens’ Party, and ran for the presidency their ticket.
He explained to the Times:
The peak of the campaign happened in Albuquerque, where a local reporter said to me, “Dr. Commoner, are you a serious candidate or are you just running on the issues?”
Time Magazine cover from February 2, 1970; Time sells replicas of historic covers.
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Posted by Ed Darrell
June 18, 2007
I really don’t like assignments to “do a PowerPoint presentation” for kids who are not expert at all on their subjects — there is too much room for too much unintentional mischief when people who know little about a topic are to use a tool designed for people who know too much about a topic.
Among other things, kids who have never had to do a five-page report, nor an outline of a report, do not have the experience to stick to five bullets of less than five words per slide. And don’t get me going on “fireworks” animation of letters to explain things like the death of Medgar Evers, or the evils of child labor.
But if you want some ideas, the Paducah, Kentucky, school system offers some templates for student reports, and a few presentations teachers could use as foundations, here at “Connecting Teachers and Students.” There is advice, too. *
Use these as starting points, please. If you can’t improve on them, you’re not trying (no offense, Paducah — I hope).
A good exercise for you would be to spend an hour reading suggestions from Presentation Zen, and then edit a couple of those presentations from Paducah to make them more, um, zen reflective.
Remember, “template” is just a part of “contemplate.”
(I hope I don’t regret having pointed out that Paducah site to you.)
Update March 8, 2008: Paducah’s school district archived the PowerPoint stuff. I have changed the links above to link to the archive sites. I replaced “www” with “old” in the URL.
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7 Comments | Accuracy, Classroom technology, Editing, Pedagogy, Presentations, Student projects, Technology, Technology in the classroom | Tagged: PowerPoint, slide templates, student presentations, Technology | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
June 18, 2007
Two Madison quotes today: 
I congratulate you on the foundation thus laid for a general System of Education, and hope it presages a superstructure, worthy of the patriotic forecast which has commenced the Work. The best service that can be rendered to a Country, next to that of giving it liberty, is in diffusing the mental improvement equally essential to the preservation, and the enjoyment of the blessing.
James Madison letter to Littleton Dennis Teackle, March 29, 1826; from the Madison Papers at the University of Virginia
No feature in the aspect of our Country is more gratifying, than the increase and variety of Institutions for educating the several ages and classes of the rising generation, and the meritorious patriotism which improving on their most improved forms extends the benefit of them to the sex heretofore, sharing too little of it. Considered as at once the fruits of our free System of Government, and the true means of sustaining and recommending it, such establishments are entitled to the best praise that can be offered.
James Madison letter to Gulian C. Verplanck, February 14, 1828; from the Madison Papers at the University of Virginia
Both quotes are contained in James Madison’s “Advice to My Country,” edited by David B. Mattern, University Press of Virginia, 1997
Image: James Madison Presidential Dollar as struck, image from the U.S. Mint (Department of the Treasury) via About.com
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Posted by Ed Darrell
June 16, 2007
The story could fuel jokes for years. Or it could cause tears, as indeed it did from the woman who organized the festivities around the unearthing of the 50-year-old Plymouth buried at Tulsa’s courthouse.
The headline in The Tulsa World shows pluck, determination and a good sense of humor: Tulsa celebrates anyway, but the Plymouth is a bucket of rust.
“Tarnished gold,” is the headline.
Now we know what 50 years in a hole does to a Plymouth Belvedere.
The tires go flat. The paint fades. Hinges and latches stiffen, upholstery disintegrates, the engine becomes a very large paperweight.
But what the heck. None of us is what we used to be.
1957? Eisenhower sent U.S. Marshalls, and then the U.S. Army, into Little Rock, Arkansas, so 9 African-Americans could register to go to Central High School. That was so long ago that the Little Rock 9 graduated, became doctors, lawyers and businessmen, and even an undersecretary of Labor, and got very gray; Central High is now a National Historic Monument (though still a high school). 
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Posted by Ed Darrell
June 15, 2007
1968 propelled history in dramatic fashion, much of it tragic. History teachers might await the 40th anniversary stories of 1968’s events, knowing that the newspapers and television specials will provide much richer material than any textbook could hope for.
Was 1967 less momentous? Perhaps. But an anniversary this week only serves to highlight how the entire decade was a series of turning points for the United States. This week marks the 40th anniversary of the Supreme Court’s issuing the decision in Loving v. Virginia. The Lovings had been arrested, convicted and exiled from the state of Virginia for the crime of — brace yourself — getting married.
Photo of Richard and Mildred Loving from Bettman-Corbis Archive.
You see, Virginia in those days prohibited marriage between a black person and a white person. So did 15 other states. In language that is quaint and archaic to all but Biblical literalist creationists, the trial judge said:
“Almighty God created the races white, black, yellow, malay and red, and he placed them on separate continents. And but for the interference with his arrangement there would be no cause for such marriages. The fact that he separated the races shows that he did not intend for the races to mix.”
The Lovings appealed their conviction. They appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court. And on June 12, 1967, the Supreme Court of the United States struck down laws that prohibit a person of one “race” from marrying a person of another. (I put “race” in quotes because, as we have since learned from DNA studies, there is just one race among us, the human race. Science verifies that the Supreme Court got it right, as did the Americans before them who wrote the laws upon which the Supreme Court’s decision was based.)
From 1958 to 1967 — nine years the case wended through the courts. Oral argument was had on April 10 — the decision coming down in just two months seems dramatically quick by today’s standards. This was one of the cases that angered so many Americans against the Court presided over by Chief Justice Earl Warren.
Ed Brayton at Dispatches from Culture Wars points to a statement from Mildred Loving on this anniversary. The statement is below the fold. Read the rest of this entry »
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8 Comments | 1968, Citizenship, Civil Rights, Fourteenth Amendment, Freedom - Political, Heroes, History, Human Rights, Jurisprudence, Justice, U.S. Constitution | Tagged: 1967, Civil Rights, Constitution, Loving v Virginia, marriage, Miscegination, Supreme Court | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
June 15, 2007
Educate, Inc., the parent company of Sylvan Learning Centers, traded for the last time on the NASDAQ exchange yesterday.
No, the company didn’t go out of business. It was taken private by its management, after being a public company for three years. From the Baltimore Sun morning e-mail:
Educate becomes a private company
Educate Inc. has completed its transition into a private company, ending its three-year run on public markets.
Best known for its Sylvan tutoring centers, the Baltimore company, which was purchased in a management-led buyout, traded for the last time on the Nasdaq yesterday.
The investor group that purchased the company is led by chief executive officer R. Christopher Hoehn-Saric, other executives and affiliates of Sterling Capital Partners and Citigroup Private Equity. They paid $8 a share for the company in the deal valued at $535 million.
The company announced this week that more than 75 percent of shareholders approved the deal, which came as the firm has struggled with poor product sales.
Internal reorganization was swift. The company’s website carried this note this morning:
On June 13, 2007, through a merger transaction, Edge Acquisition, LLC became the owner of Educate, Inc. In a related series of simultaneous transactions, the companies which were part of Educate, Inc. have been split into the following independent companies:
- Educate Services, which includes Sylvan Learning, Catapult Learning, and Schulerhilfe;
- Hooked on Phonics, Inc., which includes Hooked on Phonics, Reading Rainbow, and GPN;
- Educate Online, Inc., which includes Catapult Online and eSylvan;
- Progressus, Inc.; and
- Educate Corporate Centers Holdings, Inc., which is a franchisee of various Sylvan Learning and owner of Sylvan Learning Centers.
The companies are now operating independently to better serve students, families and schools across the country. To learn more about the merger and related transactions, click here.
Making a profit delivering education is rare. Milton Friedman notwithstanding, free market rules do not apply to educational enterprises in the same way they do to other services. This is one more example, or set of examples, that should give pause to any rational person considering making public schools “compete” for money to improve education for any child, especially any group of children. Sylvan Learning Centers are considered to be the top of the heap in their niche; Hooked-on-Phonics is a cliché success story. And they “struggle with poor product sales.”
I hope the company finds the education answers, the magic bullets, and can retail them at affordable prices.
The answer, by the way, probably is not 42.
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1 Comment | Brain learning, Business, Business Ethics, Education, Education quality, Education spending, Education success, Free market economics, Pedagogy, Teaching, Technology, Technology in the classroom | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
June 14, 2007
The socks. Just look at the socks.
Photo found at DailyKos.
18 USC Sec. 713 , governing the use of the presidential seal, and others, and Executive Order 11649, governing use of the presidential and vice presidential seals, below the fold.
Read the rest of this entry »
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Posted by Ed Darrell
June 14, 2007
Ran into a website from a Dallas guy who is a practicing historian of a sort. A former oil man, he is involved in preserving and telling the story of the guys who rescued priceless works of art from the Nazis, the Monuments Men.
Robert Edsel’s blog is here; the site for his book, Rescuing DaVinci, is here.
Dallas-area world history and U.S. history teachers — have you called this guy to see if he’ll come visit your school?
- Edsel’s caption for this photo: “Monuments Men Bernard Taper, James Reeds, Harry Ettlinger, and Horace Apgar being formally recognized for their efforts during World War II” [in Washington, D.C., on June 6, 2007]
Text of Mr. Edsel’s remarks below the fold.
Read the rest of this entry »
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Posted by Ed Darrell
June 14, 2007
Just last week I subscribed to Michigan’s service which notifies by e-mail when to fly flags at half-staff, especially since Michigan honors soldiers killed in Iraq and Afghanistan with this simple flag courtesy. Michigan is the first state I’ve found that offers such notification — from the office of Gov. Jennifer M. Granholm. (You may subscribe to Michigan’s service at the Governor’s website.)
It turns out that 28 of our 50 states honor fallen soldiers in this fashion. USA Today carried the full list, compiled by reporters at a couple of Gannett Newspapers.
The entire list is below the fold, quoted exactly from USA Today — is your state one that lowers flags, or not? If you know of a service to notify people of how the flag should be flown, please tell what you know in the comments.
Read the rest of this entry »
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Posted by Ed Darrell
June 14, 2007
Alas! Initial word out of Tulsa is not encouraging. The buried 1957 Plymouth Belvedere was in a concrete vault, and sealed in plastic, to protect it from the effects of being buried. It may not have been protected well enough — when the cover was pulled off the vault yesterday, the vault had several feet of water.
The story is told well, here, on the Route 66 News blog.
Photos do not encourage me. The residue on the sides of the vault is a rust color. That could be from the red soil (does Tulsa have red soil?) — or it could be from rust from the car.
Here’s hoping the car was protected from the water . . .
Official opening is set for tomorrow, June 15, 2007.
Spread the word; friends don't allow friends to repeat history.
1 Comment | Archaeology, Capturing history, Cold War, Current History, Teaching, Technology, Transportation, Travel | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
June 14, 2007
Did I mention I love libraries? Especially, I love those libraries with books and periodicals, in print. Studying and writing history can involve a lot of time in libraries.
Look at this site, by Rachel, a newly-minted Master of Philosophy in Historical Studies: A Historian’s Craft, “Bookporn #9”
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Posted by Ed Darrell
June 13, 2007
This quote actually isn’t a quote. It was never said by the man who wrote it down to say it. It carries a powerful lesson because of what it is.
A few days ago I posted Gen. Dwight Eisenhower’s “order of the day” to the troops about to conduct the Allied invasion of Normandy to establish the toehold in Europe the Allies needed to march to Berlin, and to end World War II in Europe. As a charge to the troops, it was okay — Eisenhower-style words, not Churchill-style, but effective enough. One measure of its effectiveness was the success of the invasion, which established the toe-hold from which the assaults on the Third Reich were made.
When Eisenhower wrote his words of encouragement to the troops, and especially after he visited with some of the troops, he worried about the success of the operation. It was a great gamble. Many of the things the Allies needed to go right — like weather — had gone wrong. Victory was not assured. Defeat strode the beaches of Normandy waiting to drive the Allies back into the water, to die. [Photo shows Eisenhower meeting with troops of the 101st Airborne Division, 502nd Parachute Infantry Regiment, on the eve of the invasion. It was these men whose courage he lauded. Update: Someone “took hostage” the photo I linked to — a thumbnail version is appended; I leave the original link in hopes it might be liberated] 
Eisenhower wrote a second statement, a shorter one. This one was directed to the world. It assumed the assault had failed. In a few short sentences, Eisenhower commended the courage and commitment of the troops who, he wrote, had done all they could. The invasion was a chance, a good chance based on the best intelligence the Allies had, Eisenhower wrote. But it had failed.
The failure, Eisenhower wrote, was not the fault of the troops, but was entirely Eisenhower’s.
He didn’t blame the weather, though he could have. He didn’t blame fatigue of the troops, though they were tired, some simply from drilling, many from war. He didn’t blame the superior field position of the Germans, though the Germans clearly had the upper hand. He didn’t blame the almost-bizarre attempts to use technology that look almost clownish in retrospect — the gliders that carried troops behind the lines, the flotation devices that were supposed to float tanks to the beaches to provide cover for the troops (but which failed, drowning the tank crews and leaving the foot soldiers on their own).
There may have been a plan B, but in the event of failure, Eisenhower was prepared to establish who was accountable, whose head should roll if anyone’s should.
Eisenhower took full responsibility.
Our landings in the Cherbourg-Havre area have failed to gain a satisfactory foothold and I have withdrawn the troops. My decision to attack at this time and place was based upon the best information available. The troop, the air [force] and the navy did all that bravery and devotion to duty could do. If any blame or fault attaches to the attempt, it is mine alone.
Who in the U.S. command would write such a thing today?
- The message may also be viewed here. Yes, it’s incorrectly dated July 5 — should have been June 5.
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19 Comments | D-Day, Dwight Eisenhower, Ethics, Famous Battles, Famous quotes, Leadership, World War II | Tagged: D-Day, Dwight Eisenhower, Ethics, Famous Battles, Famous quotes, Leadership, Turning Points, World War II | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
June 13, 2007
8:30 a.m. Eastern time, here: http://www.history.com/classroom/nhd/
Here’s the History Channel blurb:
National History Day – Live Webcast
Thursday, June 14th at 8:30am ET
National History Day is a year-long education program that engages students in grades 6-12 in the process of discovery and interpretation of historical topics. Students produce dramatic performances, imaginative exhibits, multimedia documentaries and research papers based on research related to an annual theme. Click the links [on the History Channel site] to view the Awards Ceremony during a LIVE Webcast on Thursday, June 14th at 8:30am [EDT]. The History Channel is a proud sponsor of National History Day.
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Posted by Ed Darrell
June 13, 2007
When was the last time you saw something like this, “This is the way science should always work,” in a history journal?
If it were your error, would you be big enough to publicize it loud and far, as Dr. Hall has done?
Is there some medal for honesty that we could award Dr. Hall?
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Posted by Ed Darrell
Millard Fillmore's Bathtub 
