Congress’s flag etiquette book: Our Flag

January 14, 2007

A good guide to flag etiquette from the U.S. Congress is on-line now. Our Flag is a traditional publication Congress passes out in efforts to help education in history and patriotism (H.Doc 108-97).

Interest in proper etiquette for flag display increased recently — not enough by my calculation, but any increase is welcomed. Where is good information available?

This Congressionally-sponsored guide is basic and accurate. As a classroom resource or a piece of a Scout troop library, it’s a useful reference guide. It can be downloaded (it’s a .pdf), and printed out in color (56 pages).

The book includes many illustrations showing proper flag display.  It also covers the history of the U.S. flag in good enough detail to get through most high school reports, and it features illustrations of flags of each of the states.

Congress in the past provided many publications on such topics for general public consumption and use in classrooms, but has cut back on free distribution of printed information since the early 1980s.  One might be able to get a printed copy with a request to one’s local Member of the House of Representatives, or U.S. Senator.

Boy Scouts of America version of the flag etiquette guide, Your Flag

Boy Scouts of America version of the flag etiquette guide, Your Flag

Another book I’ve found very useful is an official Boys Scouts of America publication of the almost the same name, Your Flag.  It’s a graphic-novel type of publication — cartoons for every point to be made.  It features deeper information on proper flag display.  The book can be purchased at any local Boy Scout Council supply shop, or any other shop that stocks Scout literature.  It can also be ordered from BSA’s national catalog, or online at Scoutstuff.org, for $7.9910.99plus shipping.  Every Scout troop should have one of these, and it is also very useful for classroom libraries, for history and civics.

In either publication, one learns that there are not many ways to display a flag properly from a vehicle — improper displays include decals on windows, bumper stickers, flying them from the radio antenna, or attaching them to a window pole to be battered in freeway-speed winds.

One might hope these books get much broader circulation.

22 Comments | Accuracy, Boy Scouts of America, Flag etiquette, Patriotism | Tagged: , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

Hello? Are you there?

January 10, 2007

National Delurking Week badgeIt is national Delurking Week.  We all learn more in conversation, when we all listen.  The comments sections at the end of each post are there so you can add what you know.  A few people have provided great corrections and wonderful links.  Commenters are far, far less than 1% of visitors here.

Speak up!  Please.

Tip of the scrub brush to Pharyngula, and Adventures in Ethics and Science.

3 Comments | Accuracy, Democracy, Dissent, Free speech, Freedom - Political, History blogs | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

Fillmore’s writings on line

January 9, 2007

Manchester Union Democrat, Dec 8, 1852, with news of Fillmore's SOTU address

Manchester, New Hampshire, Union Democrat,
December 8, 1852 (?); with news of Fillmore’s State of the Union Address

Millard Fillmore was a grade school drop out. He took the path to a career that many in his day did — he apprenticed, and worked his way up. Legal education in his day (circa 1815 to 1825) required that one apprentice in a law office, to “read for the law.” In that way, Fillmore, who didn’t graduate elementary school, became a lawyer.

Lawyering requires words, of course, but Fillmore was no great writer than we know, especially compared to Teddy Roosevelt, who was a newspaper reporter, or John Kennedy, in whose name a Pulitzer Prize-winning book was published (controversy for another time; Profiles in Courage, (Perennial Classics Books, 2000). We might hope that some institution will undertake a collection of Fillmore’s legal arguments as they may be spread across New York court archives, much as the Lincoln Library has scoured Illinois for Lincoln’s writings and oral arguments.

We may assume that Fillmore participated heavily in the writing of his state of the union addresses, in a day when ghost writers were not listed in the staff books of the White House. So they would contain genuine Fillmore ideas and phrases. Fillmore’s three state of the union speeches are available at the Gutenberg Project.

I’ll be mining them for accurate quotes, you may rest assured. (Does he mention bathtubs in any of the speeches? No.) Read the rest of this entry »

Leave a Comment » | Abraham Lincoln, Accuracy, Good Quotes, Millard Fillmore, Presidents | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

Kentucky watch on intelligent design

January 8, 2007

Kentucky is shopping for a new state commissioner of education.  The outgoing commissioner, cognizant of the legal failures of education agencies to insert ID into curricula during the past year, advised that the new person should not be an ID advocate.

Members of the Kentucky State School Board say it is not an issue.  The story is here, in the Kentucky version of the Cincinatti Post.

Leave a Comment » | Accuracy, Bogus history, Creationism, Evolution, Intelligent Design, Science, Science and faith, State school boards | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

Happy birthday, Millard Fillmore!

January 7, 2007

Millard Fillmore was born on January 7, 1800.

Fillmore was:

  • The 13th President of the United States
  • The first Chancellor of the university at Buffalo now known as the University at Buffalo, the State University of New York
  • The “handsomest man I ever met” according to Queen Victoria
  • Namesake of one of the earliest capitals of Utah, Fillmore, in Millard County
  • Almost definitely NOT the person responsible for putting plumbing in the White House, especially for the first plumbed bathtub.

Happy birthday, Mr. Fillmore! We hardly know ye, still!

(Prof. Parker at Another History Blog worked to dog down the quote attributed to Fillmore that I mentioned Friday:  “May God save the country, for it is evident that the people will not.”  He could not confirm the quote, but at least as good and probably better, he offers a free history database.  Go see.)

5 Comments | Accuracy, History, History blogs, Hoaxes, Millard Fillmore | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

Washington’s Valley Forge vision that never was

January 2, 2007

At Boston 1775, J. L. Bell discusses what is known about the accuracy of reports that Gen. George Washington had a vision of an angel while the Continental Army camped at Valley Forge, Pennsylvania. I cannot improve on Mr. Bell’s telling of the story, so go read it there.

7 Comments | 1776, Accuracy, America's founding, Bogus history, George Washington, History, History blogs, History Revisionism, Hoaxes | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

Churchill, on war and executions

January 2, 2007

“When you have to kill a man it costs nothing to be polite.”

  • Winston Churchill, The Second World War: Moral of the Work, vol. III, The Grand Alliance (1950)

Churchill, 1946 portrait by Douglas Chandor, Smithsonian (NatlPortraitGall)

 

  • Sir Winston Churchill, 1946 portrait by Douglas Chandor, courtesy of Smithsonian Institution, National Portrait Gallery, Washington, D.C.

 

Leave a Comment » | Accuracy, Good Quotes, History, Iraq, Winston Churchill | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

Flag respect on display for Ford funeral

January 2, 2007

Actions convey messages. Actions communicate. How one acts in regarding the U.S. flag, at different times when action is required, tells something about character — whether one was even paying attention when respect for the flag, and the ideals it portrays, was explained.

President Ford's casket in the Capitol Rotunda - photo by Todd Heisler, NY Times

President Ford’s casket lies in the rotunda of the U.S. Capitol. New York Times photo by Todd Heisler.

Here are a few things you may observe during the services for President Ford: Read the rest of this entry »

7 Comments | Accuracy, Bogus history, Flag etiquette, Gerald Ford, Presidents | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

Kearny, NJ, supports voodoo history

January 1, 2007

A brave kid in Kearny, New Jersey, recorded his high school history teacher doing what can be fairly described as preaching religion instead of teaching history.  That should be good enough warning to good and careful history teachers to keep doing their jobs right.

Some citizens of Kearny, however, take a different view:  On a city-run internet bulletin board the student gets little support, and his father gets threatened.  Jim Lippard at the Lippard Blog has a summary of key details.

And you thought your class a tough room to work?

And a tip of the old scrub brush for tracking the story to Pharyngula.

Postscript:  Does anyone know how to pronounce the name of that town?   Like Kearns, Utah, or is it like Kearny, Nebraska? 

5 Comments | Accuracy, Bogus history, Civil Rights, Curricula, Voodoo history | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

For the record: Pearceys’ slam at Judge Jones unwarranted

December 30, 2006

Rick and Nancy Pearcey — she the author of Christian best-seller Total Truth — have a blog called Pro-Existence. A few days ago I stumbled across the blog because they quoted me :

Praise: “University of Chicago geophysicist Raymond Pierrehumbert called Jones’ ruling a ‘masterpiece of wit, scholarship and clear thinking’ while lawyer Ed Darrell said the judge ‘wrote a masterful decision, a model for law students on how to decide a case based on the evidence presented.’ Time magazine said the ruling made Jones one of ‘the world’s most influential people’ in the category of ‘scientists and thinkers.'”

Well, they didn’t quote me directly: They borrowed the quote from a Discovery Institute paper. That’s only significant because such copying is, by their definition, the academic sin of “plagiarizing,” judging from the way they attempt to accuse a federal judge of not doing his duty. (And, if I had to guess, I’d guess they didn’t read the report, but instead copied their stuff from a report in WorldNet Daily — plagiarism of a copy! At least they linked, even if they didn’t attribute, to that publication.)

They borrowed the DI’s criticism of Judge John E. Johns, of the Federal District Court for the Middle District of Pennsylvania, in his decision against a school board’s requiring intelligent design be inserted to the curriculum of the local schools. DI clumsily, and erroneously, labeled the decision a piece of plagiarism.

I wrote a response. The Pearceys have not seen fit to publish it (it’s a closely moderated blog, and apparently anything that they don’t like, or that calls them to Christian task for their errors, doesn’t make it). I post my response to the Pearcey’s below the fold. If they respond here, I won’t censor them.

Read the rest of this entry »

1 Comment | Accuracy, Creationism, Ethics, Evolution, Intelligent Design, Journalism, Jurisprudence, Plagiarism | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

Dobzhansky on evolution theory

December 29, 2006

“Let me try to make crystal clear what is established beyond reasonable doubt, and what needs further study, about evolution. Evolution as a process that has always gone on in the history of the earth can be doubted only by those who are ignorant of the evidence or are resistant to evidence, owing to emotional blocks or to plain bigotry. By contrast, the mechanisms that bring evolution about certainly need study and clarification. There are no alternatives to evolution as history that can withstand critical examination. Yet we are constantly learning new and important facts about evolutionary mechanisms.”

— Theodosius Dobzhansky, “Nothing in Biology Makes Sense Except in the Light of Evolution,” American Biology Teacher vol. 35 (March 1973); reprinted in Evolution versus Creationism, J. Peter Zetterberg, ed., ORYX Press, Phoenix, Arizona, 1983

Dobzhansky in California, c. 1966

Dobzhansky in California, c. 1966. American Philosophical Society photo

Video on evolution as the “breakthrough of the year” in 2005, for Science magazine, is here: http://video.biocompare.com/137_1.wmv.

Tip of the old scrub brush to Talk.Origins and Laurence Moran.

1 Comment | Accuracy, Creationism, Evolution, Science | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

‘First, Roy Moore came for Keith Ellison . . .’

December 26, 2006

While denying that they have any racist or other xenophobic intent, critics of Minnesota’s U.S. Representative-elect Keith Ellison, like the abominable Dennis Prager, continue to try to gin up reasons why he cannot carry his own scriptures to Congress, why he cannot have the rights that every school child in America has, because the scriptures Ellison carries are Islamic.

Except for Roy Moore, the Xian Nationalist, unreconstructed Christian Reconstructionist, and Christian Dominionist who probably got the memorandum about how they aren’t supposed to talk about it in public, but who lets it fly anyway.

Representing the Great Booboisie, Roy Moore says Ellison should not be seated in Congress at all.

Alabama’s voters were wise to reject Roy Moore as governor, after Moore burned the people so badly when they trusted him to be chief justice of the state’s supreme court, and he instead turned the court into a circus of religious pomposity and disregard for the laws of religious freedom. Another History Blog Fisks the manifold, manifest errors Moore makes.

I cannot escape the feeling that Moore is speaking for most Reconstructionists and Dominionists, Read the rest of this entry »

9 Comments | Accuracy, America's founding, Bad Quotes, Bill of Rights, Bogus history, Civil Rights, First Amendment, Freedom - Political, Good Quotes, History Revisionism, Patriotism, Religious Freedom, Voodoo history | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

Accidental humor — Fillmore and Bush

December 26, 2006

Whitehouse.gov features biographical and other information on every president. As a baseline source of data, it works very well.

So, preparing for the anniversary of Millard Fillmore’s birth (January 7, 1800), I was checking details at the site, and I noted that it carried a “related links” box.

Millard Fillmore coloring book, done by a kid, from White House

Millard Fillmore is widely considered to be one of the worst, or most inactive, presidents in U.S. history. He was an accidental president, taking office on the death of Zachary Taylor. Trying to avoid controversy and confrontation he let fester many of the problems that would lead to the Civil War. He was a one-term president — his own party refused to nominate him for election on his own, in 1852. After the Whig Party crashed and burned, Fillmore accepted the nomination of the American Party, more commonly known as the Know-Nothing Party, in 1856. “Millard Fillmore” is shorthand for “failed presidency” in most lexicons.

So, what should we make of the box on the page, “Related Links,” which points to President George W. Bush? Read the rest of this entry »

Leave a Comment » | Accuracy, Millard Fillmore, Technology in the classroom | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

The Christmas card I wish I had

December 23, 2006

Olduvai George is just wonderful; go see his card.

The tree is up — a new one to us, still not natural in hopes of preventing the family-wide sinusitis the physicians say is caused by living things on the real trees.  The wreaths are up outside (a bit late, but still before Christmas).  One batch of mulled cider down already; St. Olaf’s and King’s College and Colorado State Choirs on the CD player (Emmy Lou and Louis Armstrong coming up).

Gotta find the Santa hat to put on the bust of Einstein, though.

Christmas cards always vex.  It’s difficult to walk the line between the friends who border on fanatic Christian and take offense at humorous cards, the friends who border on radical atheist and take offense at religious themes, the friends whose international concerns virtually dictate cards from international children’s agencies that feed several villages in Africa or Bengla Desh.

A mammoth card walks the line nicely, I think.  I’ve urged George to publish them; if you think you might like one, go tell him.

Tip of the old scrub brush to P. Z. Myers and Pharyngula.

Leave a Comment » | Accuracy, Natural history, Prehistory, Science | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

Free Inconvenient Truth for teachers

December 23, 2006

    Update: As of February 11, 2007, all 50,000 free copies have been given away. You may register for other giveaways and contests of Participate.net

.

Participate.net is giving away 50,000 copies of the movie on climate change, An Inconvenient Truth.

First 50,000 teachers who ask. Go here: http://www.participate.net/educators/pub_files/ait-block_dvd.jpg

One more way Al Gore is ahead of his time.

2 Comments | Accuracy, Current History, Economics, Environmental protection, Geography - Physical, Geography - Political, History video sources, Video and film | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

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