My first thought was, “Do they have a 2nd Amendment area?” My second thought was, if we put up signs saying “2nd Amendment Area” will cops enforce it?
It’s probably a violation of prior restraint law, of course. The sign is an indication of just how bizarre and sick things are in Ferguson, Missouri, at the moment. It’s also an indication of how bizarre things were at Bundy Ranch.
Tip of the old scrub brush to Randy Creath.
Spread the word; friends don't allow friends to repeat history.
PrintsOldandRare.com had a copy of an 1864 Illustrated News with Millard Fillmore on the cover.
Prints Old and Rare: “1853 Portrait of Millard Fillmore. Antique engraved portrait of Fillmore from the May 28, 1853 issue of the Illustrated News, surrounded by text discussing the history of his administration. 11×16 in. SOLD”
What was the contemporary judgment on the last Whig President, whose own party refused to nominate him for a term of his own?
One wonders if there isn’t another copy of that newspaper floating around out there, or whether it might be available at the Library of Congress.
FULTON — Former President Millard Fillmore was a tested leader who would preserve the Union and heal political divisions, Editor John Williams wrote, announcing his preference for the Democratic presidential nomination.
“We have tried him and we know that he will do us justice,” Williams wrote.
The Democratic National Convention was scheduled to begin Aug. 29 at Chicago. Fillmore, 64, was gaining some notice as a potential candidate, but most Democrats were focused on Maj. Gen. George McClellan. Nicknamed “The Young Napoleon,” McClellan was a meticulous officer who thoroughly organized the Army of the Potomac but was relieved of command because of his cautious approach to combat.
Missouri had 22 delegate seats at the convention, with U.S. Rep. William Hall of Randolph County, banker Weston Birch of Howard County and former U.S. Rep. Thomas Price of Cole County included in the delegation.
Williams wrote that while he preferred Fillmore, “McClellan will do — he is a Christian — a soldier and a patriot. Although a war man we believe he would favor peace at once, with the most liberal terms, and on the condition of the Union. If not McClellan, then some other good man…”
A few miles from the New Mexico border, in Chromo, Colorado:
East of Durango, along U.S. Highway 160 84, a school building with a sign suggesting it was built in 1895. The map said it was Chromo, Colorado. Photos by Ed Darrell; use with attribution is encouraged.
Difficult to tell how many rooms; it could have had up to four classrooms at one point, I reckon. The belfry is still there, but the bell is long gone — a prize for some scavenger if it was not removed for re-use, or for a museum.
Bigger windows that many modern schools, windows students could use to actually look outdoors. Modern school architects seem to want students to be unaffected by the outdoors, or light from outdoors, often.
Off in a field by itself, there was plenty of room for kids to run around, at recess.
In this photo the sign is legible: “State of Colorado 1895 Approved Standard School.”
Was this a standard design, or does “standard school” refer to the program of instruction offered?
There were a few homes and farms close by. The community has always been small. How many students learned to read, learned how to handle numbers, read the greats of American history and literature in these walls? Who were they, and where did they go?
How big a mark can a school, or a teacher, actually make?
Chromo School resides on the Colorado Registry of Historic Places, in Archuleta County; “Chromo School, US Hwy. 84, State Register 6/12/1996, 5AA.1907; The 1922 Chromo School served the area’s children from 1922 to 1954, and it continues to function as a community center. The concrete structure is a well preserved example of a rural school complex that also includes a teacherage and privy. Its design is reminiscent of local Hispanic architecture.” Teacherage?
Yosemite National Park, Facebook site: About forty members of U.S. 6th Cavalry, Troop F, shown mounted on, or standing beside their horses, and lined up atop and beside the Fallen Monarch tree in the Mariposa Grove of Giant Sequoias, Yosemite, 1899.
Giant sequoia trees can be found only in the United States, and only in or near the Sierra Mountains in California.
How massive are they? The tree above, with the 6th Cavalry’s F Troop posing on and around it with their horses, is 26 feet in diameter at its base, where it fell, and 285 feet long, Redwood doesn’t rot like other woods. The tree is still there, today, looking much like it did 115 years ago (Comments on Yosemite NP photo).
The Fallen Monarch, in Mariposa Grove, in 1907:
Fallen Monarch, Mariposa Grove of Yosemite NP, in 1907, with a stage coach and team of six horses posing on top.
When did the tree fall? Hundreds of years ago, perhaps?
I don’t generally post these posters, except to take issue . . . but this one made me chuckle.
Daily Edge poster, “Not Reagan, you idiot. Obama.”
Text, with English teacher editing:
He created 9.9 million jobs in a record 53-month stretch of uninterrupted job growth.
He reduced the deficit by $800 billion within 5 years, and grew the stock market by 142% within his first 2,000 days.
Not Reagan, you idiot: Obama.
Spread the word; friends don't allow friends to repeat history.
Making those nice photographs of the Milky Way and stars isn’t so easy as it looks.
I made my most successful efforts on our recent swing through Colorado, New Mexico and West Texas. Here’s a shot I got that almost shows the Milky Way, probably has Polaris in it, and because it was a timed exposure, also captured star movement and an airplane flying overhead. Photo was taken from the Army Corps of Engineers campground at Abiquiu Reservoir, a few miles from Georgia O’Keefe’s home.
Abiquiu Stars – Time photograph of stars against a pinon pine, pointing north; Milky Way almost visible in the East.
Spread the word; friends don't allow friends to repeat history.
I come back from vacation, and no one tells me Warren Bennis passed on?
Why wasn’t that front page news, in every city with a corporation, a government, or a school?
Warren Bennis, in a publicity photo from the University of Southern California, the last of several academic institutions where he taught, or lead the entire school.
We know why. Bennis, who some claim invented the study of leadership in the modern world, is too little read in corporations — and almost never read in government, and probably never read in education leadership.
Try this experiment, you teachers: As you go back to school this month for the “in service” sessions that challenge your ability to stay awake, ask your principals and administrators what their favorite Warren Bennis book, or idea, is. If you find one who knows who Warren Bennis was, will you send us that person’s name for a Wall of Honor here?
Bennis wrote too abstractly for many. He was not one who would have ever thought about writing The One Minute Manager, not because there aren’t some good ideas in that book, but because he wrote to the higher levels of organizational thinking. (Our good friend Perry W. Buffington used to point out in his lectures that you’d run from the waiting room if you heard your neurosurgeon was reading the One Minute Brain Surgeon. Bennis would have put it more gracefully, and taken three pages to do it — but a serious reader would understand.)
With all the trouble we have in organizations these days, you’d think Bennis’s work would be on everybody’s bookshelf, and assigned to all incoming interns.
Hey, you MBAs: What class did you read Bennis in? Did you read Bennis at all?
Warren Bennis, who died Thursday in Los Angeles at age 89, was once called the “dean of leadership gurus,” a description that unfortunately stuck.
I say “unfortunately” because, for Bennis, there was never any kind of shtick. There was no silver bullet or four-box matrix or slide deck offering an oversimplified how-to guide to leadership. This giant among leadership experts — I take no exception to the “dean” part — was a thinker and an adviser, but not a guru. He wrote and talked about leadership as if the answers were still being shaped, even in his experienced mind.
He was a thoughtful, genuine, and always engaged man whom I came to know in these past eight years as a reporter covering management and leadership.
“I am as leery as anyone of the idea of leaping to conclusions, or making more of evidence than is demonstrably true,” Bennis wrote in his influential 1989 classic, On Becoming a Leader. “To an extent, leadership is like beauty: It’s hard to define, but you know it when you see it.”
For Bennis, leadership was a personal journey, something individual and introspective that must be learned through life’s experiences. He was a staunch believer that leaders are made not born, formed out of “crucible” moments and struggles that prepare them to lead. As he wrote in On Becoming a Leader — essential reading for anyone — leadership is about self-discovery and self-expression. “Before people can learn to lead, they must learn something about this strange new world.”
It may take me a few days to organize thoughts: Does it matter that he’s gone, if those who most need his work would never read it anyway?
Any guy who can look at a convention of high-paid CEOs and tell them that followers make them what they are, deserves much more than just a second thought.
What do others say?
.@geriwithetc@garthcello Another variation from my friend Warren Bennis, re successful transformers: "dreamers with deadlines."
I once took a survey among teachers, and not one said they thought their principal would fight to defend them; it was a small survey, but it discouraged me from pursuing the question more.
— Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists (@BulletinAtomic) August 9, 2014
From The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists:
At the end of the day, it can be worthwhile on the Hiroshima and Nagasaki anniversaries to think about the personal and the emotional—while keeping such clinical data in mind and ready to hand when it is necessary to debate proponents of ideas such as “battlefield nuclear weapons,” “limited nuclear war,” and the use of select nuclear strikes as a form of “de-escalation.”
Therefore, perhaps the most compelling of the stories in the Bulletin archive is a first-person recollection, Hiroshima Memories, by Hideko Tamura Friedman, who was just a young girl back on August 6, 1945. After moving to the United States and becoming a therapist in private practice and a part-time social worker in the Radiation Oncology Department at the University of Chicago Hospitals, Hideko excerpted this 1995 article from a longer, unpublished manuscript she was working on.
Hideko describes how she was reading a book when “a huge band of white light fell from the sky down to the trees.” She jumped up and hid behind a large pillar as an explosion shook the earth and pieces of the roof fell about her.
Hideko survived; some members of her family did not. “My father,” she wrote in in a heart-rending statement of fact, “brought Mama’s ashes home in his army handkerchief.”
Much has changed since I wrote most of the post, below, in 2009. The number of years, perhaps (and I’ve changed them in the text). Not enough else.
The Obama Administration made some progress in getting Iran to the table to talk non-proliferation of nuclear weapons. START was renewed. But not much more.
We’re left with the hope that this was the last time atomic weapons are used.
Stars and Stripes posted this short video of the ceremonies held in 2011 in Peace Park in Nagasaki
A memorial service was held at the Nagasaki Peace Park on Aug. 9, 2011, the 66th anniversary of the atomic bomb being dropped on the city at the tail end of World War II. The ceremony was attended by dignitaries from 44 countries – including an envoy from the United States – to honor the more than 155,000 people who were claimed by the bomb, including the 80,000 killed instantly.
The service came three days after one similar in Hiroshima, and marked the first time in history that an envoy from the United States attended both services.
In the wake of the March 11 disaster, Japanese officials called for the abolition of nuclear weapons and also for renewable sources of energy to replace nuclear power.
Nuclear anniversaries have been ignored again this year, it seems to me.
Ceremony in Nagasaki marked the remembrance of the victims of the second atomic weapon used in war, which was detonated over Nagasaki on August 9, 1945. Agence France Press reported (in 2009):
Nagasaki’s mayor, marking the 64th anniversary [66th in 2011] of his city’s atomic bombing by the United States, called on Sunday on the leaders of nuclear-armed powers to visit the site and build a nuclear-free world.
Hiroshima and Nagasaki, map by CNN
Tomihisa Tanoue urged world leaders from both declared nuclear powers and others such as Iran, Israel and North Korea to visit the city in southwestern Japan.
“I am sure anyone who visits here would feel the sorrow of the victims and be shaken by it,” the mayor said in an address at an annual ceremony commemorating the 1945 bombing.
A minute of silence was observed at 11:02 am (0202 GMT), when the US bomb exploded above the city, killing roughly 74,000 people. The bombing followed one a week before in Hiroshima and hastened Japan’s surrender in World War II.
Tanoue said an April speech by US President Barack Obama in Prague, where Obama pledged to build a world with no nuclear weapons, “impressed” the residents of Nagasaki.
“The Japanese government must support the Prague speech. As a nation that has come under nuclear attack, Japan must lead the international community” in abolishing the weapons, he said.
Similar appeals were made Thursday when Hiroshima marked the anniversary of its bombing, which killed 140,000 people.
At the Nagasaki ceremony, Prime Minister Taro Aso reiterated the Japanese government’s anti-nuclear stance, three weeks ahead of national elections that he is tipped to lose.
Aso raised eyebrows at the Hiroshima ceremony, when he pledged to work toward abolishing nuclear weapons but later told reporters that he thought it was “unimaginable” to attain a nuclear-free world.
Similar ceremonies, and similar pleas for nuclear non-proliferation marked the August 6 anniversary of the atomic bomb drop on Hiroshima. The Chinese news agency Xinhua reported:
Some 50,000 people gathered Thursday at the peace park in Hiroshima to mourn the 64th anniversary of the atomic bombing of the city by U.S. forces during the World War II.
Hiroshima Mayor Tadatoshi Akiba delivered a peace declaration, calling for the abolition of nuclear weapons by 2020.
“The hibakusha still suffer a hell that continues,” said Akiba.
“The Japanese government should support hibakusha, including those who were victims of black rain and those who live overseas,” he said.
“Japanese Prime Minister Taro Aso delivers a speech in front of the Memorial Cenotaph during the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Ceremony in Hiroshima, western Japan on Aug. 6, 2009. Hiroshima on Thursday mourned the 64th anniversary of the atomic bombing of the city by U.S. forces during the World War II. (Xinhua/Ren Zhenglai)”
It was reported Wednesday that the Japanese government aims to come to an agreement with all atomic bomb survivors who have sued the government for financial support to help them pay medical bills for illnesses related to the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
Akiba also said “The year 2020 is important as we want to enter a world without nuclear weapons with as many hibakusha as possible. We call on the world to join forces with us to eliminate all nuclear weapons by 2020.”
Referring to the movements such as the environmentalists, Akibasaid, “Global democracy that respects the will of the world and respects the power of the people has begun to grow.”
“We have the power. We have the responsibility. We are the Obamajority. And we can abolish nuclear weapons. Yes we can,” said the mayor.
On Wednesday, Akiba urged the people around the world to join the city’s efforts to abolish nuclear weapons in response to U.S. President Barack Obama’ s appeal for a world free of nuclear weapons.
During the 50-minute memorial ceremony, a moment of silence was observed at 8:15 a.m., the time the atomic bomb detonated over Hiroshima 64 years ago, killing nearly 100,000 people in a blink.
This in a week when two burgeoning new nuclear powers, Iran and North Korea, continue to claim they will flout non-proliferation agreements for their own self defense. [Still true in 2014, alas.]
The question obtains on nuclear issues as well as genocides: When does “never again” start?
It’s up to you and me. What have you done to make “never again” with atomic weapons, start now?
Other related posts at Millard Fillmore’s Bathtub:
Milton Glaser is famous for uniting New Yorkers under the simple, iconic “I Heart New York” logo. (He also designed the label for Brooklyn Brewery and, as I learned on a recent tour, had the good sense to emphasize the beer’s borough of origin back before it was cool.) Now, at age 85, he’s out to rebrand the climate movement. The pitch: a hazy black circle with just a small band of green (read: Earth), which people can purchase and wear as a button. In a poster hung on the exterior of the New York School of Visual Arts‘ East 23rd Street building, the logo is accompanied by the slogan “It’s not warming, it’s dying.”
The obvious problem, right off the bat, is that Earth is warming: It’s done so rapidly over the 20th century, and is expected to continue at an even faster rate over the next 100 years. The world’s governments agreed that we should try to limit warming to below 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) above pre-industrial levels to try to avoid the worst consequences of that warming, yet we’re on track to blow right past that limit. While Glaser obviously agrees that this is a problem, the slogan obscures that point. And as someone attuned to the world of climate deniers, I can’t help thinking that getting the hashtag #itsnotwarming to go viral might not have the intended effect.
But those are technicalities. Glaser told WNYC’s Brain Lehrer that his problem with the word “warming” is that it “sounds reassuring and comforting.” So if your complaint is that the slogan sounds overly pessimistic, well, that’s kind of the point. “Either Earth is dying or it’s beginning to grow again,” Glaser explained. “My preference would be that it was beginning to grow again, but for the moment I have no evidence of that.”
Or, until that account is unsuspended by the forces supporting Donald Trump: Follow @FillmoreWhite, the account of the Millard Fillmore White House Library
We've been soaking in the Bathtub for several months, long enough that some of the links we've used have gone to the Great Internet in the Sky.
If you find a dead link, please leave a comment to that post, and tell us what link has expired.
Thanks!
Retired teacher of law, economics, history, AP government, psychology and science. Former speechwriter, press guy and legislative aide in U.S. Senate. Former Department of Education. Former airline real estate, telecom towers, Big 6 (that old!) consultant. Lab and field research in air pollution control.
My blog, Millard Fillmore's Bathtub, is a continuing experiment to test how to use blogs to improve and speed up learning processes for students, perhaps by making some of the courses actually interesting. It is a blog for teachers, to see if we can use blogs. It is for people interested in social studies and social studies education, to see if we can learn to get it right. It's a blog for science fans, to promote good science and good science policy. It's a blog for people interested in good government and how to achieve it.
BS in Mass Communication, University of Utah
Graduate study in Rhetoric and Speech Communication, University of Arizona
JD from the National Law Center, George Washington University
Posted by Ed Darrell 
Millard Fillmore's Bathtub 