USDA details damage GOP refusal to pass farm bill has on America — but politely

December 19, 2013

The case for a farm bill that we won’t get before January; press release from the U.S. Department of Agriculture (some links, and all images, added here).

Public relations campaigns from the federal government used to be quite a bit more robust than this.

USDA Office of Communications (202) 720-4623

FACT SHEET: Supporting Innovation That Boosts Agriculture and Creates Jobs in Rural America

Farm south of Withee, Wisconsin. Wikipedia image

Farm south of Withee, Wisconsin. Wikipedia image


Today, Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack hosted a national media call with Jack Payne, Senior Vice President for Agriculture and Natural Resources at the University of Florida. The Secretary emphasized the importance of Farm Bill research programs that enable the University of Florida and other Land Grant Universities across the nation to carry out groundbreaking discoveries, strengthen agriculture and grow business opportunity in rural America. Secretary Vilsack called on Congress to expedite passage of a new Food, Farm and Jobs Bill that continues record efforts to spur innovation and create jobs across rural America.

Amazing scientific breakthroughs have helped our farmers, ranchers and growers increase production on the same amounts of land, using fewer inputs. In fact, studies have shown that every dollar invested in agricultural research returns $20 to the economy.

Advanced new products are being created across the country using materials grown in America’s farm fields – with more than 3,000 U.S. companies creating advanced biobased products today.

And clean, renewable fuel energy and new energy efficiency technologies are helping families and businesses across the nation, reducing our reliance on foreign oil.

A farm in California; photo by karmadude

A farm in California; photo by karmadude

USDA is hard at work to support all of these efforts – and we depend on the Farm Bill to make possible much of our work to boost rural innovation. A new Farm Bill would:

  • Modernize and expand America’s capacity for agricultural research. The Farm Bill would enable public-private funding efforts to expand capacity for agricultural research, returning even more benefits to the economy.
  • Adequately invest in energy-saving efforts such as the Rural Energy for America Program, enabling even more projects to save energy on farms across the nation. Since 2009 alone, these projects have resulted in energy savings of more than 8.5 million MwH – but a new Farm Bill is needed for further progress.
  • Continue the work of the USDA BioPreferred Program, which depends on the Farm Bill to work with biobased companies across the nation, expand the Federal government’s use of their innovative products and ultimately create jobs.
  • Maintain support for research into wood-based products and energy. With a record level of forest restoration underway today, we need a Farm Bill that continues research and helps find new uses for forest-based products.

A Farm Bill would continue advances in agricultural technology that allow today’s producers to grow two, three of four times as much today as they were just 60 years ago. In the past few years alone:

  • USDA scientists have developed new techniques in the fight against Citrus Greening, a disease that seriously threatens citrus crops. Just this week, USDA announced a new Emergency Response Framework and provided $1 million to boost this multi-partner, coordinated strategy to fight Citrus Greening.
  • Researchers have mapped the genomes of numerous plants and animals in the past five years. This year, USDA made new discoveries into the genetic makeup of cotton, oats and watermelon. This builds on research efforts that have mapped the genomes of apples, pigs, turkeys, tomatoes, beans, and more.
  • Scientific discoveries have improved crop varieties to keep food safer and mitigate climate impacts. USDA has recently explored the use of peanut skins as a food ingredient to boost the nutritional value of foods; pinpointed ways to prepare beef cuts to reduce the risk of contamination with the foodborne pathogen E. coli O157:H7; produced new, flavorful, high-yielding varieties of strawberries, grapes, pecans and peanuts; and worked to improve drought-resistance crop varieties.

A Farm Bill would allow the National Institute of Food and Agriculture to continue work with Land-Grant University researchers across the nation to conduct research and train the next generation of scientists.

  • Since 2009, NIFA has invested more than $6 billion in agricultural research and extension activities. This funding was possible largely through programs authorized under the Farm Bill. NIFA partners have used this help to leverage more than $1 billion in additional research dollars.
  • Nearly 400 patent applications have resulted from NIFA research since 2009 – covering a wide range of topics and discoveries.
  • Over the course of more than 150 years of history, Land-Grant Universities have educated more than 20,000,000 students.

A Farm Bill would support the invention and creation of innovative new products from homegrown sources. Thanks to the USDA BioPreferred Program, provided by the Farm Bill:

  • More than 1,000 products today carry USDA’s “ Certified Biobased Product” label. Thanks to the new label, these innovative, American-made products are easier to find on store shelves than ever before – everything from cleaners and paint to motor oil.
  • Nearly 100 separate categories of homegrown biobased products are prioritized for use by the Federal Government. Today, Yellowstone National Park uses biobased lubricants and cleaning products throughout its 2.2 million acres. At the Statue of Liberty, biobased hydraulic oils are used in the elevator system. Multiple U.S. military bases across the nation are using biobased products. And there is further room for growth.
  • Researchers at the U.S. Forest Products Laboratory are revolutionizing wood products for use in materials we need. Body armor, auto parts and new building materials are being developed using homegrown products – and in many cases, they’re stronger and better than what we use today.

A new Farm Bill would continue advancing clean renewable energy that starts in rural America – creating jobs and boosting America’s energy security.

  • More than 9,250 renewable energy projects are underway today as a result of USDA help in the past five years, helping farmers and landowners install new energy-saving technology, along with energy generation tools such as anaerobic digesters.
  • Eight advanced biorefineries are creating the advanced renewable energy of the future, today. USDA was there to support their creation through loan guarantee efforts provided by the Farm Bill.
  • More than 220 Wood to Energy projects are helping find new uses for wood in renewable energy generation. This will provide even more market opportunities for wood byproducts generated during forest restoration, and ultimately will provide a new income sources in rural areas.
  • The U.S. Navy and others have partnered with USDA to create renewable energy to power our military. In fact, the military is our single largest consumer of petroleum – and by creating advanced renewable marine and aviation biofuels, we’re working together to increase America’s energy security. This week, Secretary Vilsack and Secretary of the Navy Ray Mabus announced a new Department of Defense Farm to Fleet Initiative that will further improve America’s capacity to create military-ready advanced biofuels.

American innovation is one of our most special traditions. Rural America has the capacity to help lead the way to even more amazing work in the years to come – creating good jobs and economic opportunity in the process. But we need Congress to get its work done and provide a new Farm Bill that recommits our nation to strong agricultural research, and continued development of amazing homegrown products.

U.S. Department of Agriculture, South Building, Washington, D.C. Image from Thornton Thomasetti

Where the policies get made and programs are administered, U.S. Department of Agriculture, South Building, Washington, D.C. Image from Thornton Thomasetti

Number of Biobased Companies Operating in the United States

A map of U.S. biobased companies is available here.

States/Biobased Companies

  • Alabama – 16
  • Alaska – 5
  • Arizona – 54
  • Arkansas – 17
  • California – 391
  • Colorado – 79
  • Connecticut – 40
  • Delaware – 9
  • Dist of Columbia – 2
  • Florida – 161
  • Georgia – 92
  • Hawaii – 11
  • Idaho – 16
  • Illinois – 173
  • Indiana – 46
  • Iowa – 92
  • Kansas – 28
  • Kentucky – 21
  • Louisiana – 11
  • Maine – 22
  • Maryland – 36
  • Massachusetts – 73
  • Michigan – 80
  • Minnesota – 124
  • Mississippi – 21
  • Missouri – 56
  • Montana – 10
  • Nebraska – 29
  • Nevada – 14
  • New Hampshire – 25
  • New Jersey – 90
  • New Mexico – 17
  • New York – 151
  • North Carolina – 90
  • North Dakota – 6
  • Ohio – 138
  • Oklahoma – 9
  • Oregon – 79
  • Pennsylvania – 129
  • Rhode Island – 8
  • South Carolina – 19
  • South Dakota – 12
  • Tennessee – 35
  • Texas – 167
  • Utah – 14
  • Vermont – 11
  • Virginia – 57
  • Washington – 111
  • West Virginia – 3
  • Wisconsin – 95
  • Wyoming – 8

Total – 3003

Source: USDA BioPreferred Program

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USDA is an equal opportunity provider and employer. To file a complaint of discrimination, write to USDA, Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights, Office of the Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights, 1400 Independence Avenue, S.W., Stop 9410, Washington, DC 20250-9410, or call toll-free at (866) 632-9992 (English) or (800) 877-8339 (TDD) or (866) 377-8642 (English Federal-relay) or (800) 845-6136 (Spanish Federal-relay).

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Listening to the debates on Capitol Hill, one may wonder whether Members of Congress still employ staffers to track agriculture issues in their states and districts, to translate local needs into federal policy.  To what entity are Congress members loyal, with more allegiance than they owe their American constituents?

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Posted by Ed Darrell

Milton Friedman really said higher wages make a nation prosperous?

December 18, 2013

Chicago University and Nobel-winning economist Milton Friedman, inspecting fruits of free markets.

Chicago University and Nobel-winning economist Milton Friedman, inspecting fruits of free markets. (Photo found at Crooks and Liars, with quote of Friedman’s explaining the benefits of things like that Earned Income Tax Credit)

In Free to Choose, Milton Friedman wrote:

But when workers get higher wages and better working conditions through the free market, when they get raises by firm competing with one another for the best workers, by workers competing with one another for the best jobs, those higher wages are at nobody’s expense. They can only come from higher productivity, greater capital investment, more widely diffused skills. The whole pie is bigger – there’s more for the worker, but there’s also more for the employer, the investor, the consumer, and even the tax collector.

That’s the way the free market system distributes the fruits of economic progress among all people. That’s the secret of the enormous improvements in the conditions of the working person over the past two centuries.

What would Friedman say about higher productivity and greater capital investment, an increasing pie, when the increases are denied to the worker, and the employer, and the consumer, and the tax collector?  Somehow, I think even Mr. No-government-regulation would cry, “Foul!”

Heck, that’s a good argument for raising the minimum wage, and for fixing income inequality.

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Posted by Ed Darrell

Ashes to ashes, airplanes to spread them, Damon Runyon and silver bells: December 18

December 18, 2013

On December 17, Orville and Wilbur Wright got their heavier-than-air flying contraption to actually fly with motor driving it along.

First flight of the Wright Flyer I, December 1...

First flight of the Wright Flyer I, December 17, 1903, Orville piloting, Wilbur running at wingtip. Photo from Wikipedia

On December 18, Damon Runyon, Jr., got Eddie Rickenbacker to fly over Broadway to scatter the ashes of his father, Damon Runyon.

First Lieutenant E. V. [Eddie] Rickenbacker, 9...

First Lieutenant E. V. [Eddie] Rickenbacker, 94th Aero Squadron, American ace, standing up in his Spad plane. Near Rembercourt, France. Photo from Wikipedia. This photo dates near World War I; Rickenbacker remained a hero for a couple of decades. In 1946, he flew a DC-3 over New York City, and illegally scattered the ashes of raconteur Damon Runyon over his beloved Broadwary.

Not exactly the next day. 43 years and one day apart.  The Wrights first flew in 1903; Runyon died in 1946.

Today in Literature, for December 18:

On this day in 1946 Damon Runyon’s ashes were scattered over Broadway by his son, in a plane flown by Eddie Rickenbacker. Runyon was born in Manhattan, Kansas; he arrived at the bigger apple at the age of thirty, to be a sportswriter and to try out at Mindy’s and the Stork Club and any betting window available his crap-shoot worldview: “All of life is six to five against.” Broadway became his special beat, and in story collections like Guys and Dolls he developed the colorful characters — Harry the Horse, the Lemon Drop Kid, Last Card Louie — and the gangster patois that would swept America throughout the thirties and forties.

A lot of history packed in there.  Runyon’s early reportorial career included a lot of that history — he wrote the lead story for United Press on the inauguration of Franklin Roosevelt, for one example.  Runyon found a uniquely American vein of literary ore on Broadway in New York City, and in the ne’er-do-wells, swells, tarts and reformers who flocked to the City that Never Sleeps to seek fame, or fortune, or swindle that fortune from someone else.

As a reporter and essayist, he smoked a lot.  Throat cancer robbed him of his voice, then his life at 56.

Runyon’s ashes were spread illegally over Broadway, from a DC-3 piloted by Rickenbacker. Runyon would have liked that.

You couldn’t make this stuff up.

Factoids of history:

  • Twenty movies got crafted from Runyon stories, including “The Lemon Drop Kid” — in two versions, 1934 and 1951. Appropriate to the Christmas season, the 1951 version introduced the song, “Silver Bells” composed by Jay Livingston and Ray Evans. (Great explanation of the movie, and song, here.)
  • Runyon got fame first as a sports writer.  He was inducted into the writer’s wing of the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1967.
  • According to Wikipedia, Jerry Lewis and others owe a great debt to Damon Runyon:  “The first ever telethon was hosted by Milton Berle in 1949 to raise funds for the Damon Runyon Cancer Research Foundation.”
  • One might salivate over the varied fare offered in the theaters of Broadway in 1946, Runyon’s final year, “Annie, Get Your Gun” through Shakespeare, and everything in between and on either side
  • Runyon and H. L. Mencken both covered the trial of Bruno Hauptmann, the accused (then convicted) kidnapper of Charles Lindbergh’s baby son
  • Yes, of course, “Guys and Dolls.” Frank Loesser created it, but not of whole cloth, but from the stories of Damon Runyon; it is a masterpiece, perhaps in several realms.  In homage to Runyon, Adam Gopnik wrote:

    Just as Chandler fans must be grateful for Bogart, Runyon fans have to be perpetually happy that the pure idea of Runyon, almost independent of his actual writings, produced the best of all New York musicals: Frank Loesser’s “Guys and Dolls,” which made its début in 1950 and is just now reopening on Broadway in a lavish and energetic new production. But then “Guys and Dolls” is so good that it can triumph over amateur players and high-school longueurs and could probably be a hit put on by a company of trained dolphins in checked suits with a chorus of girl penguins.

    Your author here, Dear Reader, was once one of those trained dolphins. It was magnificent.

“Silver Bells,” from “The Lemon Drop Kid,” with William Frawley, Virginia Maxwell and Bob Hope (1951 version):

More:

A view of New York City in 1946:

Thomas Hart Benton (1889–1975)

Thomas Hart Benton (1889–1975) “The Artist’s Show, Washington Square,” painted in 1946

Times Square, showing part of Broadway, in November 1946, from the magnificent archives of Life Magazine:

Brownout Time Square.November 1946.© Time Inc.Herbert Gehr - See more at: http://kcmeesha.com/2011/11/29/old-photos-times-square-through-the-years/#sthash.ru9W0F9h.dpuf

Brownout Time Square.November 1946.© Time Inc.Herbert Gehr – See more at: http://kcmeesha.com/2011/11/29/old-photos-times-square-through-the-years/#sthash.ru9W0F9h.dpuf

2 Comments | History, Literature, Music | Tagged: , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

“It’s a Wonderful Life,” Republican edit

December 17, 2013

It's a Wonderful Life

Movie house poster for “It’s a Wonderful Life” (from Wikipedia)

Jimmy Kimmel’s crew put together the trailer for the new, GOP-edition of “It’s a Wonderful Life.”

Tip of the old scrub brush to Frank Milewski, and the “real communists of Bedford Falls.”

It’s a wonderful life, Christmas, Capitalism, Communism in America Politics.

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Posted by Ed Darrell

Fred Klonsky’s 10-minute drawing: What Megyn Kelly really meant

December 15, 2013

Ten minute drawing. Megyn Kelly’s Santa Claus. Drawing by Fred Klonsky

Ten minute drawing. Megyn Kelly’s Santa Claus. Drawing by Fred Klonsky

If you’re not following Fred Klonsky for his education issue updates, follow him for his drawings.

3 Comments | Cartoons, Humor, Racism | Tagged: , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

Best editorial quote ever: “Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus” It must be so, it was in the New York Sun

December 12, 2013

“Papa says, ‘If you see it in the Sun, it’s so.'”

Do we, you and I in 2013, stand as witnesses to the end of newspapers in America?  In recent months we’ve seen body blows to the New Orleans Times-Picayune, the San Diego Union, and The Cleveland Plain Dealer, and others.

It’s been a grand history. Newspapering gave us great leaders like Benjamin Franklin. Newspapering gave us wars, like the Spanish-American War. Newspapering gave us Charlie Brown, Ann Landers, the Yellow Kid, Jim Murray, Red Smith, Thomas Nast (and Santa Claus), the Federalist Papers, Watergate, Herblock, news of Vietnam and Pearl Harbor, Neil Armstrong on the Moon, the Pentagon Papers, and coupons to save money on laundry soap.

It’s been a curious history, too. An 1897 editorial vouching for Santa Claus rates as the most popular editorial of all time, according to the Newseum in Washington, D.C.  That’s 115 years ago, and that’s quite some staying power.

Francis Pharcellus Church, probably about 1860

The man who saved Christmas, at least for Virginia O’Hanlon, Francis Pharcellus Church, probably about 1860 – Wikipedia image

In autumn, 1897, 8-year-old Virginia O’Hanlon of 115 West 95th Street in New York, wrote to the New York Sun with this simple question:

“Please tell me the truth; is there a Santa Claus?”

In the age of Yellow Journalism, the fiercely competitive Sun‘s editors turned the letter to Francis Pharcellus. He responded to little Virginia on September 21, 1897:

“Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus.”

Church’s brother, William Conant Church, owned and published the newspaper. Both had followed their father into the news business. They co-founded The Army-Navy Journal in 1863, and went on to a series of journalistic collaborations. Francis was 58 years old when he answered Virginia’s letter. (He died at age 67, in 1906.)

The New York Sun held down the conservative corner in New York journalism at the time, versus the New York Times and the New York Herald-Tribune. But it also had an interesting history, to a blogger intrigued by hoaxes. In 1835 the paper published a series of six newspaper stories falsely attributed to Sir John Herschel, a well-known astronomer, claiming to describe a civilization on the Moon — the Great Moon Hoax. The discovery was credited to a new, very powerful telescope.

In 1844 the paper published a hoax written by Edgar Allen Poe, the Balloon Hoax. Under a pseudonym, Poe wrote that a gas balloon had crossed the Atlantic in three days.

The Sun also featured outstanding reporting. A 1947 and 1948 series about crime on the docks of New York City won a Pulitzer Prize for writer Malcolm Johnson. That series inspired Elia Kazan’s 1954 movie On the Waterfront starring Marlon Brando, Rod Steiger, Eva Marie Saint, Karl Malden and Lee J. Cobb.

The New York Sun ceased publication in 1950.

For all of its history, the Sun and the Churches are most remembered for that defense of belief in Santa Claus.

Virginia O'Hanlon, about the age of 8, when she wrote to The New York Sun's editors to inquire about the veracity of Santa Claus.

Virginia O’Hanlon, about the age of 8, when she wrote to The New York Sun’s editors to inquire about the veracity of Santa Claus.

Virginia O’Hanlon grew up, graduated from Hunter College, got a masters at Columbia, and earned a Ph.D. from Fordham. She taught in the New York City Public School system, from which she retired in 1959. She died in 1971.

Birth of tradition

Columbia University was Church’s alma mater, as well as O’Hanlon’s. Her letter and his response get a reading each year at the Yule Log Ceremony at Columbia College, along with the poem “A Visit from St. Nicholas.” Animated, live-acting, and other television productions have been mounted in 1974, 1991, and 2009.

Is there a Santa Claus? Did Church write a credible defense? The text of the letter and answer, below the fold.

More:  

Read the rest of this entry »

7 Comments | History, Hoaxes, holiday, Holidays, Newspapers | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

Big health care news story you probably missed (because your local media didn’t cover it)

December 10, 2013

Just sayin’, you know?

This is news economists and budget watchers and policy makers have been hoping to hear for 60 years.

Here it is — did you see it in your local paper? On TV? On Facebook?

Chart showing news coverage of record low health care cost rises. From ThinkProgress

Chart showing news coverage of record low health care cost rises. From ThinkProgress

One criticism aimed at the Affordable Care Act that had some legs was that it did not go far enough to control actual costs. Cost controls would have been impossible to add to the bill, politically. So the hope was that this first step would have some impact.

In 2009, health care cost inflation ran about 20% per year, despite the recession. For the previous two decades, health care costs inflated at a greater-than 10% clip every year.

By 2012, with a push from the reforms in the ACA, Bill Clinton reported that health care cost inflation had dropped to 4% per year.

Now?  1.3%.  This is huge news.

Who covered it?  Not many, according to ThinkProgress.

Bad news gets 24-hour coverage and bulletins during the ads.  Good news is an orphan.  How wrong is that?

Bookmark the chart and ThinkProgress; you’ll need facts in your discussions.

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Posted by Ed Darrell

Christmas 2013: Do we know who invented Santa Claus? Who really wrote the “Night Before Christmas?”

December 10, 2013

An encore post and Millard Fillmore’s Bathtub tradition from 2007

Thomas Nast invented Santa Claus? Clement C. Moore didn’t write the famous poem that starts out, “‘Twas the night before Christmas, and all through the house . . . ?”

The murky waters of history from Millard Fillmore’s Bathtub soak even our most cherished ideas and traditions.

But isn’t that part of the fun of history?

Santa Claus delivers to Union soldiers, "Santa Claus in Camp" - Thomas Nast, Harper's Weekly, Jan 3, 1863

In Janaury 1863, Thomas Nast portraye Santa Claus delivered gifts to Union troops in Washington, D.C., wearing a blue, star-spangled coat, just a few days earlier.

Yes, Virginia (and California, too)! Thomas Nast created the image of Santa Claus most of us in the U.S. know today. Perhaps even more significant than his campaign against the graft of Boss Tweed, Nast’s popularization of a fat, jolly elf who delivers good things to people for Christmas makes one of the great stories in commercial illustration. Nast’s cartoons, mostly for the popular news publication Harper’s Weekly, created many of the conventions of modern political cartooning and modeled the way in which an illustrator could campaign for good, with his campaign against the graft of Tammany Hall and Tweed. But Nast’s popular vision of Santa Claus can be said to be the foundation for the modern mercantile flurry around Christmas.

Nast is probably ensconced in a cartoonists’ hall of fame. Perhaps he should be in a business or sales hall of fame, too.  [See also Bill Casselman’s page, “The Man Who Designed Santa Claus.]

Nast’s drawings probably drew some inspiration from the poem, “Account of a Visit from St. Nicholas,” traditionally attributed to Clement C. Moore, a New York City lawyer, published in 1822. The poem is among the earliest to describe the elf dressed in fur, and magically coming down a chimney to leave toys for children; the poem invented the reindeer-pulled sleigh.

Modern analysis suggests the poem was not the work of Moore, and many critics and historians now attribute it to Major Henry Livingston, Jr. (1748-1828) following sleuthing by Vassar College Prof. Don Foster in 2000. Fortunately for us, we do not need to be partisans in such a query to enjoy the poem (a complete copy of which is below the fold).

The Library of Congress still gives Moore the credit. When disputes arise over who wrote about the night before Christmas, is it any wonder more controversial topics produce bigger and louder disputes among historians?

Moore was not known for being a poet. The popular story is that he wrote it on the spur of the moment:

Moore is thought to have composed the tale, now popularly known as “The Night Before Christmas,” on December 24, 1822, while traveling home from Greenwich Village, where he had bought a turkey for his family’s Christmas dinner.

Inspired by the plump, bearded Dutchman who took him by sleigh on his errand through the snow-covered streets of New York City, Moore penned A Visit from St. Nicholas for the amusement of his six children, with whom he shared the poem that evening. His vision of St. Nicholas draws upon Dutch-American and Norwegian traditions of a magical, gift-giving figure who appears at Christmas time, as well as the German legend of a visitor who enters homes through chimneys.

Again from the Library of Congress, we get information that suggests that Moore was a minor celebrity from a well-known family with historical ties that would make a good “connections” exercise in a high school history class, perhaps (”the link from Aaron Burr’s treason to Santa Claus?”): (read more, below the fold)

Clement Moore was born in 1779 into a prominent New York family. His father, Benjamin Moore, president of Columbia University, in his role as Episcopal Bishop of New York participated in the inauguration of George Washington as the nation’s first president. The elder Moore also administered last rites to Alexander Hamilton after he was mortally wounded in a tragic duel with Aaron Burr.

A graduate of Columbia, Clement Moore was a scholar of Hebrew and a professor of Oriental and Greek literature at the General Theological Seminary in Manhattan. [See comment from Pam Bumsted below for more on Moore.] He is said to have been embarrassed by the light-hearted verse, which was made public without his knowledge in December 1823. Moore did not publish it under his name until 1844.

Tonight, American children will be tucked in under their blankets and quilts and read this beloved poem as a last “sugarplum” before slipping into dreamland. Before they drift off, treat them to a message from Santa, recorded by the Thomas Edison Company in 1922.

“Santa Claus Hides in Your Phonograph“
By Arthur A. Penn, Performed by Harry E. Humphrey.
Edison, 1922.
Coupling date: 6/20/1922. Cutout date: 10/31/1929.
Inventing Entertainment: The Motion Pictures and Sound Recordings of the Edison Companies

Listen to this recording (RealAudio Format)

Listen to this recording (wav Format, 8,471 Kb)

But Henry Livingston was no less noble or historic. He hailed from the Livingstons of the Hudson Valley (one of whose farms is now occupied by Camp Rising Sun of the Louis August Jonas Foundation, a place where I spent four amazing summers teaching swimming and lifesaving). Livingston’s biography at the University of Toronto site offers another path for a connections exercise (”What connects the Declaration of Independence, the American invasion of Canada, the famous poem about a visit from St. Nick, and George W. Bush?”):

Henry Livingston Jr. was born in Poughkeepsie, New York, on Oct. 13, 1748. The Livingston family was one of the important colonial and revolutionary families of New York. The Poughkeepsie branch, descended from Gilbert, the youngest son of Robert Livingston, 1st Lord of Livingston Manor, was not as well off as the more well-known branches, descended from sons Robert and Philip. Two other descendants of Gilbert Livingston, President George Walker Herbert Bush and his son, President-Elect George W. Bush, though, have done their share to bring attention to this line. Henry’s brother, Rev. John Henry Livingston, entered Yale at the age of 12, and was able to unite the Dutch and American branches of the Dutch Reformed Church. At the time of his death, Rev. Livingston was president of Rutgers University. Henry’s father and brother Gilbert were involved in New York politics, and Henry’s granduncle was New York’s first Lt. Governor. But the law was the natural home for many of Henry’s family. His brother-in-law, Judge Jonas Platt, was an unsuccessful candidate for governor, as was his daughter Elizabeth’s husband, U.S. Supreme Court Justice Smith Thompson. Henry’s grandson, Sidney Breese, was Chief Justice of the Illinois Supreme Court.

Known for his encyclopedic knowledge and his love of literature, Henry Livingston was a farmer, surveyor and Justice of the Peace, a judicial position dealing with financially limited criminal and civil cases. One of the first New Yorkers to enlist in the Revolutionary Army in 1775, Major Henry Livingston accompanied his cousin’s husband, General Montgomery, in his campaign up the Hudson River to invade Canada, leaving behind his new wife, Sarah Welles, and their week-old baby, on his Poughkeepsie property, Locust Grove. Baby Catherine was the subject of the first poem currently known by Major Livingston. Following this campaign, Livingston was involved in the War as a Commissioner of Sequestration, appropriating lands owned by British loyalists and selling them for the revolutionary cause. It was in the period following Sarah’s early death in 1783, that Major Livingston published most of his poems and prose, anonymously or under the pseudonym of R. Ten years after the death of Sarah, Henry married Jane Patterson, the daughter of a Dutchess County politician and sister of his next-door neighbor. Between both wives, Henry fathered twelve children. He published his good-natured, often occasional verse from 1787 in many journals, including Political Barometer, Poughkeepsie Journal, and New-York Magazine. His most famous poem, “Account of a Visit from St. Nicholas,” was until 2000 thought to have been the work of Clement Clarke Moore (1779-1863), who published it with his collected poems in 1844. Livingston died Feb. 29, 1828.

More on Henry Livingston and his authorship of the Christmas poem here.
Thomas Nast, Merry Old Santa Claus, Harper's Weekly, Jan 1, 1881

Our views of Santa Claus owe a great deal also to the Coca-Cola advertising campaign. Coca-Cola first noted Santa’s use of the drink in a 1922 campaign to suggest Coke was a year-round drink (100 years after the publication of Livingston’s poem). The company’s on-line archives gives details:

In 1930, artist Fred Mizen painted a department store Santa in a crowd drinking a bottle of Coke. The ad featured the world’s largest soda fountain, which was located in the department store of Famous Barr Co. in St. Louis, Mo. Mizen’s painting was used in print ads that Christmas season, appearing in The Saturday Evening Post in December 1930.

1936 Coca-Cola Santa cardboard store display

  • 1936 Coca-Cola Santa cardboard store display

Archie Lee, the D’Arcy Advertising Agency executive working with The Coca-Cola Company, wanted the next campaign to show a wholesome Santa as both realistic and symbolic. In 1931, The Coca-Cola Company commissioned Michigan-born illustrator Haddon Sundblom to develop advertising images using Santa Claus — showing Santa himself, not a man dressed as Santa, as Mizen’s work had portrayed him.
1942 original oil painting - 'They Remembered Me'

  • 1942 original oil painting – ‘They Remembered Me’

For inspiration, Sundblom turned to Clement Clark Moore’s 1822 poem “A Visit From St. Nicholas” (commonly called “‘Twas the Night Before Christmas”). Moore’s description of St. Nick led to an image of Santa that was warm, friendly, pleasantly plump and human. For the next 33 years, Sundblom painted portraits of Santa that helped to create the modern image of Santa — an interpretation that today lives on in the minds of people of all ages, all over the world.

Santa Claus is a controversial figure. Debates still rage among parents about the wisdom of allowing the elf into the family’s home, and under what conditions. Theologians worry that the celebration of Christmas is diluted by the imagery. Other faiths worry that the secular, cultural impact of Santa Claus damages their own faiths (few other faiths have such a popular figure, and even atheists generally give gifts and participate in Christmas rituals such as putting up a decorated tree).

For over 100 years, Santa Claus has been a popular part of commercial, cultural and religious life in America. Has any other icon endured so long, or so well?

________________________
Below:
From the University of Toronto Library’s Representative Poetry Online

Major Henry Livingston, Jr. (1748-1828)

Account of a Visit from St. Nicholas

1 ‘Twas the night before Christmas, when all thro’ the house,

2 Not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse;

3 The stockings were hung by the chimney with care,

4 In hopes that St. Nicholas soon would be there;

5 The children were nestled all snug in their beds,

6 While visions of sugar plums danc’d in their heads,

7 And Mama in her ‘kerchief, and I in my cap,

8 Had just settled our brains for a long winter’s nap –

9 When out on the lawn there arose such a clatter,

10 I sprang from the bed to see what was the matter.

11 Away to the window I flew like a flash,

12 Tore open the shutters, and threw up the sash.

13 The moon on the breast of the new fallen snow,

14 Gave the lustre of mid-day to objects below;

15 When, what to my wondering eyes should appear,

16 But a miniature sleigh, and eight tiny rein-deer,

17 With a little old driver, so lively and quick,

18 I knew in a moment it must be St. Nick.

19 More rapid than eagles his coursers they came,

20 And he whistled, and shouted, and call’d them by name:

21 “Now! Dasher, now! Dancer, now! Prancer, and Vixen,

22 “On! Comet, on! Cupid, on! Dunder and Blixem;

23 “To the top of the porch! to the top of the wall!

24 “Now dash away! dash away! dash away all!”

25 As dry leaves before the wild hurricane fly,

26 When they meet with an obstacle, mount to the sky;

27 So up to the house-top the coursers they flew,

28 With the sleigh full of Toys — and St. Nicholas too:

29 And then in a twinkling, I heard on the roof

30 The prancing and pawing of each little hoof.

31 As I drew in my head, and was turning around,

32 Down the chimney St. Nicholas came with a bound:

33 He was dress’d all in fur, from his head to his foot,

34 And his clothes were all tarnish’d with ashes and soot;

35 A bundle of toys was flung on his back,

36 And he look’d like a peddler just opening his pack:

37 His eyes — how they twinkled! his dimples how merry,

38 His cheeks were like roses, his nose like a cherry;

39 His droll little mouth was drawn up like a bow.

40 And the beard of his chin was as white as the snow;

41 The stump of a pipe he held tight in his teeth,

42 And the smoke it encircled his head like a wreath.

43 He had a broad face, and a little round belly

44 That shook when he laugh’d, like a bowl full of jelly:

45 He was chubby and plump, a right jolly old elf,

46 And I laugh’d when I saw him in spite of myself;

47 A wink of his eye and a twist of his head

48 Soon gave me to know I had nothing to dread.

49 He spoke not a word, but went straight to his work,

50 And fill’d all the stockings; then turn’d with a jerk,

51 And laying his finger aside of his nose

52 And giving a nod, up the chimney he rose.

53 He sprung to his sleigh, to his team gave a whistle,

54 And away they all flew, like the down of a thistle:

55 But I heard him exclaim, ere he drove out of sight –

56 Happy Christmas to all, and to all a good night.

Online text copyright © 2005, Ian Lancashire for the Department of English, University of Toronto. Published by the Web Development Group, Information Technology Services, University of Toronto Libraries. Be sure to visit this site for more information on this poem, on Maj. Livingston, and on poetry in general.

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3 Comments | A Good Story, Art, Cartoons, Civil War, DBQ sources, Family, Historic documents, History, History and art, History images, Holidays, Newspapers, Poetry, Religion, Thomas Nast, Tradition | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

Dead economists you ought to know: John Maynard Keynes

December 9, 2013

“Portrait of John Maynard Keynes 1883-1946” oil on Canvas. Roger Eliot Fry, via Wikigallery – image for non-commercial use only

NPR’s Morning Edition ran a three part series on the some of the people most influential in modern economics. Well, three people — Ayn Rand, Friedrich von Hayek, and John Maynard Keynes.

The series is a good one, and each piece is pretty good at explaining what the economists and Rand were about and why you should know them and their work.

There’s not much that survives of Keynes’ own spoken words, but he can be heard in an old British newsreel, in which he delivered a stern admonition.

“We must free ourselves from the bondage of old ideas,” he said.

One of the “old ideas” Keynes sought most to debunk was the notion that economies in trouble would naturally fix themselves, thanks to the magic of the marketplace. Princeton economist Alan Blinder says Keynes put his finger on a key economic problem — namely, that insufficient demand leads to growing unemployment.

“It’s very simple, that if there aren’t enough buyers, the sellers won’t produce,” Blinder says. “And if they don’t produce, they don’t hire workers. And if they don’t hire workers, the workers don’t have income — and if the workers don’t have income, they can’t buy stuff.”

Keynes was, after all, an economist of crises. The economic stimulus he prescribed for an ailing economy, he made clear, was merely a short-term remedy. In the long term, he wrote, we’re all dead.

In Keynes’ seminal 1936 book, The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money, he argued that markets do indeed fail, and that if individuals or private enterprise cannot or will not spend in the short term, then the government must, to boost employment.

Here’s the Keynes v. Hayek rap mentioned in the story:

I gave economics students extra credit for reading chapters of Keynes’s book, The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money, or otherwise studying this material. It’s something far too few people do.

[Much of this post appeared earlier at Mr. Darrell’s Pin Factory; used here with express permission.]

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1 Comment | Economics, History, John Maynard Keynes | Tagged: , , , | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

Fly your flag today: President Obama invites flag-flying to remember Pearl Harbor, 72 years ago

December 7, 2013

Flag flies at half-staff over the USS Utah, in Pearl Harbor (2004 photo - Pearl Harbor, Hawaii (May 31, 2004) - Sailors assigned to ships based at Pearl Harbor bring the flag to half-mast over the USS Utah Memorial on Ford Island in honor of Memorial Day May 31, 2004. U.S. Navy photo

Flag flies at half-staff over the USS Utah, in Pearl Harbor (2004 photo – Pearl Harbor, Hawaii (May 31, 2004) – Sailors assigned to ships based at Pearl Harbor bring the flag to half-mast over the USS Utah Memorial on Ford Island in honor of Memorial Day May 31, 2004. U.S. Navy photo)

Proclamation from President Obama (links added):

For Immediate Release

December 05, 2013

Presidential Proclamation — National Pearl Harbor Remembrance Day, 2013

NATIONAL PEARL HARBOR REMEMBRANCE DAY, 2013

– – – – – – –

BY THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

A PROCLAMATION

More than seven decades ago, on a calm Sunday morning, our Nation was attacked without warning or provocation. The bombs that fell on the island of Oahu took almost 2,400 American lives, damaged our Pacific Fleet, challenged our resilience, and tested our resolve. On National Pearl Harbor Remembrance Day, we honor the men and women who selflessly sacrificed for our country, and we show our enduring gratitude to all who fought to defend freedom against the forces of tyranny and oppression in the Second World War.

In remembrance of Pearl Harbor and to defend our Nation against future attacks, scores of young Americans enlisted in the United States military. In battle after battle, our troops fought with courage and honor. They took the Pacific theater island by island, and eventually swept through Europe, liberating nations as they progressed. Because of their extraordinary valor, America emerged from this test as we always do — stronger than ever before.

We also celebrate those who served and sacrificed on the home front — from families who grew Victory Gardens or donated to the war effort to women who joined the assembly line alongside workers of every background and realized their own power to build a brighter world. Together, our Greatest Generation overcame the Great Depression, and built the largest middle class and strongest economy in history.

Today, with solemn pride and reverence, let us remember those who fought and died at Pearl Harbor, acknowledge everyone who carried their legacy forward, and reaffirm our commitment to upholding the ideals for which they served.

The Congress, by Public Law 103-308, as amended, has designated December 7 of each year as “National Pearl Harbor Remembrance Day.”

NOW, THEREFORE, I, BARACK OBAMA, President of the United States of America, do hereby proclaim December 7, 2013, as National Pearl Harbor Remembrance Day. I encourage all Americans to observe this solemn day of remembrance and to honor our military, past and present, with appropriate ceremonies and activities. I urge all Federal agencies and interested organizations, groups, and individuals to fly the flag of the United States at half-staff this December 7 in honor of those American patriots who died as a result of their service at Pearl Harbor.

IN WITNESS WHEREOF, I have hereunto set my hand this fifth day of December, in the year of our Lord two thousand thirteen, and of the Independence of the United States of America the two hundred and thirty-eighth.

BARACK OBAMA

So, while this day is not listed in the U.S. Flag Code as a day to fly the flag, you certainly may fly it out of respect for veterans of Pearl Harbor and World War II; and now there is a presidential proclamation urging us to fly the flag, half staff.  If you can’t fly your flag at half-staff, fly it at full staff.

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Photo from 2011: Vice President Joe Biden and U.S. Pacific Commander Admiral Willard, pay their respects at the USS Arizona Memorial in Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, Wednesday, August 24, 2011. (Official White House Photo by David Lienemann)

Photo from 2011: Vice President Joe Biden and U.S. Pacific Commander Admiral Willard, pay their respects at the USS Arizona Memorial in Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, Wednesday, August 24, 2011. (Official White House Photo by David Lienemann)

President Barack Obama places a wreath at the USS Arizona Memorial, part of the World War II Valor in the Pacific National Monument, in Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, Dec. 29, 2011. (Official White House Photo by Pete Souza)

President Barack Obama places a wreath at the USS Arizona Memorial, part of the World War II Valor in the Pacific National Monument, in Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, Dec. 29, 2011. (Official White House Photo by Pete Souza)

1 Comment | Flag etiquette, Fly your flag today, History, Pearl Harbor, veterans, World War II | Tagged: , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

Happy birthday Arctic National Wildlife Refuge; 53 years

December 6, 2013

Icy day here in Dallas, we missed a lot of dates that should have been commemorated.

Let’s catch this one:  The Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) was created 53 years ago today in the administration of Dwight Eisenhower, by Interior Secretary Fred A. Seaton.

Happy 53rd birthday to the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge! @USFWSHQ @USFWSRefuges #Alaska pic.twitter.com/2popb7EAvz

Photo probably not taken this week:  From the US Department of Interior: Happy 53rd birthday to the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge! @USFWSHQ @USFWSRefuges #Alaska pic.twitter.com/2popb7EAvz

ANWR finds itself the center of controversy, now, because of the possibility of oil underneath it, and the difficulty of getting that oil without destroying wildlife habitat, or the possibility of destructive oil spills.  For an understanding of the issues, visit ANWR’s website and the non-partisan discussion there.

Odd that land so severely beautiful, so far out of the way and so difficult to master, has its fate decided in marble halls in Washington, D.C., 3,172 miles distant. The United States is a big, sprawling nation.

Information on the ANWR:

History and Culture

Refuge Establishment: Legislation and Purposes

The Arctic Refuge was established in 1960 and expanded in 1980.

Refuge History

The Arctic Refuge has been providing for the physical and emotional well-being of humans for many thousands of years. It remains an important resource to help sustain local Eskimo and Indian cultures. The Refuge continues to be valued, even by those who never travel within it’s borders, as a symbol of America’s vast and remote wilderness – a place of inspiration and beauty – a promise for the future for all Americans.

Local Cultures

The lands of the Arctic Refuge continue to support the Inupiat Eskimo and Gwich’in Indian peoples who have lived here for centuries.

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3,172 miles between the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and Washington, D.C.

3,172 miles between the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and Washington, D.C.

1 Comment | Alaska, Energy, Environmental protection, History, National Wildlife Refuge, Nature, Oil | Tagged: , , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

Texas Education Agency looking for social studies books reviewers (and math and fine arts)

December 2, 2013

Last time the SBOE approved social studies books in 2010, the process was contentious. This photo, from The Christian Science Monitor, shows protests on the books; photo by Larry Kolvoord/Austin American-Statesman

Last time the SBOE approved social studies books in 2010, the process was contentious. This photo, from The Christian Science Monitor, shows protests on the books; photo by Larry Kolvoord, Austin American-Statesman

Good news a few days ago was that the Texas State Board of Education approved science books that teach real science, for use in Texas schools.

But the Road Goes On Forever, and the Tea Party Never Ends:  Social studies books are up for review, now.

TEA is looking for nominations for reviewers for books in social studies, math and fine arts.  Here’s the notice I got in e-mail:

The Texas Education Agency is now accepting nominations to the state review panels that will evaluate instructional materials submitted for adoption under Proclamation 2015.

To nominate yourself or someone else to serve on a state review panel, please complete the form posted at http://www.tea.state.tx.us/WorkArea/linkit.aspx?LinkIdentifier=id&ItemID=25769808256&libID=25769808258 and submit it to the TEA on or before Friday, January 24, 2014.

Proclamation 2015 calls for instructional materials in the following areas:

♦   Social Studies, grades K-12

♦   Social Studies (Spanish), grades K-5

♦   Mathematics, grades 9-12

♦   Fine Arts, grades K-12

State review panels are scheduled to convene in Austin for one week during the summer of 2014 to review materials submitted under Proclamation 2015. The TEA will reserve hotel lodging and reimburse panel members for all travel expenses, as allowable by law.

  • Panel members should plan to remain on-site for five days to conduct the evaluation.
  • Panel members will be asked to complete an initial review of instructional materials prior to the in-person review.
  • Panel members will receive orientation and training both prior to the initial review and at the beginning of the in-person review.
  • Panel members might be asked to review additional content following the in-person review.
  • Because many of the samples will be delivered electronically, panel members should be comfortable reviewing materials on-screen rather than in print.
  • Panel members should also have a working knowledge of Microsoft Excel.

Upon initial contact by a representative of the TEA, state review panel nominees begin a “no-contact” period in which they may not have either direct or indirect contact with any publisher or other person having an interest in the content of instructional materials under evaluation by the panel. The “no contact” period begins with the initial communication from the Texas Education Agency and ends after the State Board of Education (SBOE) adopts the instructional materials. The SBOE is scheduled to adopt Proclamation 2015 materials at its November 2014 meeting.

Nominations are due on or before Friday, January 24, 2014.  The nomination form is posted on the TEA website at http://www.tea.state.tx.us/WorkArea/linkit.aspx?LinkIdentifier=id&ItemID=25769808256&libID=25769808258.

If you have any questions, please contact review.adoption@tea.state.tx.us.

***********************************************************

Thank you for your commitment to serving Texas students.

Social Studies Staff, Division of Curriculum, (512) 463-9581

Social Studies in Texas include history, geography, economics, government (civics), and (oddly) psychology and sociology, and “special topics.”

Please pass word along to the teachers you know in social studies, fine arts and math.

We recall that old Bette Davis line, playing Margot Channing in “All About Eve”:  “Fasten your seatbelts.  It’s going to be a bumpy night.”

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Leave a Comment » | Economics, Education, Geography - Economic, Geography - Physical, Geography - Political, History, psychology, Textbook Selection, Textbooks | Tagged: , , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

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