Undated photograph of John Reed (1880-1927) at this typewriter, from the Oregon Historical Society, “Oregon Biographies.”
John Reed at his typewriter
April 28, 2007
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Posted by Ed Darrell
Water to the Arctic
April 19, 2007It didn’t start out to be such an odd question. “How does water get to the Arctic Ocean,” the kid asked. I’d just dropped on them a warm-up noting the designation of a fifth ocean, the Southern Ocean. They were working on maps, some coloring them in. To some of the students, it was news that we have more than one ocean on the planet.
“Water seeks its own level,” I explained. “Rivers carry waters to the oceans.”
He was really confused. Puzzling over Canada especially, he was venting. I was stupid, and not getting his question. “How come rivers don’t flow north?” he asked. Read the rest of this entry »
1 Comment | Books, Education, Geography - Physical, Geography - Political, Lesson plans, Maps, Teaching, Weblogs | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
Richer historians, richer history: The Pulitzers
April 17, 2007Columbia University unveiled the Pulitzer Prize winners yesterday.
In U.S. history, the prize went to The Race Beat:The Press, the Civil Rights Struggle, and the Awakening of a Nation, by Gene Roberts and Hank Klibanoff (Alfred A. Knopf).
Other finalists for U.S. History were: Middle Passages: African American Journeys to Africa, 1787-2005 by James T. Campbell (The Penguin Press), and Mayflower: A Story of Courage, Community, and War by Nathaniel Philbrick (Viking).
Roberts and Klibanoff share $10,000.
In Biography, the $10,000 first prize was awarded to The Most Famous Man in America: The Biography of Henry Ward Beecher, by Debby Applegate (Doubleday).
Finalists for the biography prize included two other great books: John Wilkes: The Scandalous Father of Civil Liberty by Arthur H. Cash (Yale University Press), and Andrew Carnegie by David Nasaw (The Penguin Press).
In the category of general non-fiction, where evolution has triumphed over anti-science bigotry in recent years, history is rampant in 2007, also. The prize for general non-fiction was snagged by The Looming Tower: Al-Qaeda and the Road to 9/11″ by Lawrence Wright (Alfred A. Knopf). Other finalists for the general non-fiction prize were Crazy: A Father’s Search Through America’s Mental Health Madness by Pete Earley (G.P. Putnam’s Sons), and Fiasco: The American Military Adventure in Iraq by Thomas E. Ricks (The Penguin Press). 
High school history and other social studies teachers would do well to read each of these winners and the finalists. They will be significant additions to any serious history curriculum, or government, and perhaps economics.
2 Comments | Bill of Rights, Books, Civil Rights, Heroes, History, Iraq, Journalism, Justice, Leadership, School desegregation, War | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
Searching for origins of life in Yellowstone’s hot springs
April 17, 2007A few hours ago I posted a notice on satellite studies of the uplifting of a part of the Yellowstone Caldera, and I suggested some (weak) links to how to use it in the classroom. In passing I noted that the volcanic rock site southwest of Yellowstone, the Craters of the Moon National Monument, had been used to show astronauts what the Moon would be like when they landed Apollo missions there.
Yellowstone and especially its volcanic features also provided dramatic insights to the origins of life on Earth, especially the rise of life in hot water. These findings advanced the science we now call astrobiology, or the search for life on other planets.
This evening I stumbled across an interesting feature: A full text of a classic 1978 book on thermophilic life in Yellowstone, explaining in greater detail the research conducted there and its significance in astrobiology and evolution. Thomas D. Brock’s book, Thermophilic microorganisms and life at high temperatures (Springer-Verlag, New York, 1978; 465 pages) is just sitting there, online, for anyone to read. 
In this book there is more real science to this one tiny facet of the study of the evolution of life than there is in the entirety of the intelligent design political movement.
I wonder what other gems there may be in that digital collection at the University of Wisconsin.
Below the fold: The frontispiece. Read the rest of this entry »
1 Comment | Books, Darwin, Education, Evolution, Geography - Physical, History, Intelligent Design, Natural history, On-line learning, Public libraries, Science, Space exploration | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
Quote of the Moment: Kurt Vonnegut
April 12, 2007Listen: Billy Pilgrim has come unstuck in time.
— Kurt Vonnegut, opening of chapter 2 of Slaughterhouse Five, the start of the Billy Pilgrim story.
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Posted by Ed Darrell
Blue Bell Ice Cream, a tastier part of Texas history
March 18, 2007My first visit to Texas in the early 1980s, to visit friends in Houston and in-laws in Dallas, I met Blue Bell Ice Cream. It was love at first bite, of course.
Blue Bell Creamery ad, barn and blue sky, and their memorable slogan
Ice cream plays an important role in my family. Family reunions, or just any celebration in summer, were excuses to pull out several hand-cranked ice cream makers, and freeze away. Homemade vanilla delights the palate, and family gourmands grind vanilla beans to add a little extra oomph. When grandfather Leo Stewart had peaches from his orchard, or later just peaches from our backyard tree in Pleasant Grove, Utah, fresh peaches went into the mix. Only someone who experienced my father’s peaches in my mother’s custard, frozen in a hand-cranked freezer, could fully appreciate Willie Stark‘s lines about peach ice cream in Robert Penn Warren’s book, All the King’s Men.
White Mountain 6-quart hand crank ice cream freezer, one of the better freezers
Homemade ice cream is a bother. Better freezers are not cheap, and they don’t travel well. My mother’s mini-freezer disappeared sometime in one of her later-life moves. My father’s much larger, two-gallon colossus simply wore out, with most of the ferrous metal parts rusting away, and even the wood of the barrel crumbling to dust. Proper salt to get the solution colder than freezing is sporadically available in city supermarkets. My mother’s recipe for the custard, unwritten as all her better recipes, died with her.
Bluebell Peaches and Homemade Vanilla
Utah is a haven for ice cream makers. Snelgrove’s on 33rd South in Salt Lake City is tradition in many families (Snelgrove is now owned by Dreyer’s, but still operates as Snelgrove in Utah) (Update, July 2008: Snelgrove’s is dead). My wife’s family is partial to Farr’s in Ogden, “Farr better ice cream” — and it is very, very good. Trips to visit family include stops at Farr’s.
Blue Bell Homemade Vanilla tastes like my mother’s custard frozen in a hand-cranked freezer. It is consistently the best-tasting ice cream, for a very reasonable price.
Blue Bell celebrates its 100th anniversary as a company in 2007, the “little creamery” in Brenham, Texas, where Blue Bell is made.
Even better, the company wants you to suggest new flavors, and is holding a contest to get good, local flavors. Winners of the Taste of the Country Flavor Contest get a trip to Brenham for the 100th anniversary celebration.
Plus, winners get a year’s supply of Blue Bell ice cream.
Blue Bell is a nice local company making good. Though the production is limited (and I believe it is still true that all the ice cream is made in Brenham), so it is available only in 17 states concentrated in the southeast, the brand is the third best-selling brand in the U.S.
If you’re near Houston, you would be well advised to make a side trip to Brenham to tour the Blue Bell ice cream factory (plus, the bluebonnets will be in bloom shortly).
North America is a big continent, with international brands that work for international consistency of products, so that the company’s customers get the same experience regardless where the customers are — think McDonalds, Burger King, and Coca-Cola. Large conglomerates often own even nominally regional brands. As I noted earlier, Snelgrove’s in Salt Lake City is now run by a national ice cream giant — even Ben & Jerry’s brand is now owned, produced and marketed by a national marketing giant. Blue Bell is a standout, an almost-local brand, with limited distribution. Part of the joy of a well-working free enterprise system is finding a well-run local company, with a unique product.
Blue Bell could make a fortune bottling their success formula, too, in addition to their ice cream.
26 Comments | Books, Economics, Family, Food history, Free market economics, Texas, Travel | Tagged: Blue Bell Ice Cream, Books, Economics, Family, Food history, Free market economics, Texas, Travel | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
Arthur Schlesinger
March 1, 2007History is a bit more poorly told, the world is a bit less knowledgeable today. Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., died last night. He was 89.
Details at the New York Times.
Schlesinger was a model historian in some ways. He wrote well, earning two Pulitzer Prizes. He picked important, salient subjects — The Imperial Presidency, for example, came in the Nixon years, in time to analyze Nixon’s own actions and help make the case for his impeachment.
Also important, Schlesinger was no library recluse. He spent time as an advisor to President Kennedy in the best tradition of a practical, professional historian — trying to help Kennedy avoid the mistakes of the past.
A man who wrote history worth the reading, AND who made history worth the writing. Perhaps no one else other than Winston Churchill and Theodore Roosevelt could be described so, in the 20th century.
I hope you teachers will mention Schlesinger’s passing to your classes, and offer him as an example of the effect a student of history might have.
Arthur M. Schlesinger in 1994; photo courtesy of WNYC FM.
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Posted by Ed Darrell
A little plagiarism, a little book
February 19, 2007“Plagiarize! Plagiarize!//Don’t let anything evade your eyes!”Tom Lehrer, Lobachevsky
“Oh, he just stole from me. I steal from everybody.” Attributed to Woody Guthrie by Pete Seeger (Together, with Arlo Guthrie, 1974)
“Plagiarism is the root of all culture.” Pete Seeger (1974 tour)
Internet files and other databases make plagiarism amazingly easy. College faculties debate how best to police against plagiarism. Students caught and kicked out appear befuddled at the academic death penalty, when all it takes is a couple of mouse clicks over a text prepared by a willing accomplice.
Federal judge, University of Chicago law professor and blogger Richard Posner wrote a small book on plagiarism. In fact, that’s its title, The Little Book of Plagiarism (Pantheon,116 pages, $10.95).
My policy in class is to challenge students when I find they’ve stolen someone else’s work. I go over attribution, footnoting and bibliographic listings, on a spoken assumption that they don’t know how to do it. They don’t like it, but they realize it’s better than expulsion. I’ve never had a student try it a second time (that I’ve caught).
Some younger students, in junior high and high school, say they do not understand why they may not simply cut and paste material from internet sources, but I suspect that is more defense than genuine lack of understanding. More than once these same students have later complained that other student’s “stole” their work. Plagiarism sometimes appears more clear when others steal from you.
In a review of Posner’s book in the Los Angeles Times, Jonathan Kirsch wrote that Posner identified a key problem for society: What do we do when the stolen text improves the work? It’s the issue that Woody Guthrie knew and Pete Seeger stated: Borrowing good stuff is what culture is all about. In highly literate circles, the game is to make allusions to works that most people know, to relate to an already-established body of knowledge to shed light on other ideas.
Plagiarists, on the other hand, would shut off access to the broader body of the work of the originator – so the intent of the true plagiarizer is not to relate to previous works. Some plagiarizers want credit for the ideas, some student plagiarizers probably want credit only for the word count.
In the higher evil, plagiarism is not about stealing other people’s ideas. It’s about stealing the words without caring about the ideas. It is not that the plagiarizer covets the ideas too much, but rather that the plagiarizer is indifferent to the ideas, seeing only the individual trees and missing the forest.
That’s where the great danger lies as well. A forest is more than just the sum of the trees in it, as we only too late discovered with regard to ecosystems that depend on the various stages of forest growth, aging, decline, destruction and rebirth. An idea is worth more than the mere count of its words, or even the prima facie meaning of the words.
The sin of the plagiarizer is in not knowing what the plagiarizer steals.
And, with a tip of the old scrub brush to Let’s Play Math, we call your attention to a blog devoted to plagiarism issues, Plagiarism Today. Especially, you may want to take a look at the blog’s review of Posner’s book.
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Posted by Ed Darrell
Crazies without comment
February 6, 2007As the title notes, without comment:
- Duane Gish says life couldn’t have arisen on Earth
- Anti-book people in Kansas go after Hot Zone, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, Beloved, Slaughterhouse Five, and Tuesdays with Morrie
- American Family Association worried that kids will learn in libraries that sex is normal
3 Comments | Accuracy, Books, First Amendment, Libraries | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
Olla podrida
December 29, 2006Olla podrida is a local, Spanish term for a Mulligan stew, for olio, etc.
Founding fathers and illegal immigrants — A new blog on the migration debate, cleverly titled Migration Debate, highlights a New York Times opposite-editorial page piece that details how many of our “founding fathers” took advantage of illegal immigration, or immigrated illegally themselves. William Hogeland wrote the piece, whom some of you will recognize as the author of The Whiskey Rebellion: George Washington, Alexander Hamilton and the Frontier Rebels who challenged America’s newfound sovereignty. (Scribner, 2006)
Google’s amazing powers: Bad time to be speechless: Over at 31fps, Google.com/maps magical powers are explained: The author finds a store on Google maps, clicks a button, and Google first calls his phone, and then calls the store — go Google, and leave the dialing to Google. Star Trek wasn’t this good. Just be sure you’re over being speechless when the party at the other end answers.
Amazing cosmos: Phil Plait at Bad Astronomy lists his top 10 images from outer space for 2006. #1 is a doozy, but be sure you read the explanation Phil offers.
Fashionable extinction: Microecos explains how fashion wiped out a beautiful, unique bird, the huia, in New Zealand, a century ago. It’s a reminder of how stupid humans can be — a good exercise is in there somewhere for geography classes, or a general lecture on the effects of colonization.
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Posted by Ed Darrell
Finn of Fordham: Read the commission report
December 16, 2006I’m a bit surprised. Chester Finn, president of the Fordham Foundation, recommends we read and take seriously the recommendations of the New Commission on Skills of the American Workforce. I had thought he’d be a lot more skeptical a lot earlier.
Which means a couple of things: One, we ought to read and take seriously the report, as Finn urges; two, Finn continues to think originally about problems of education, and can’t be pigeon-holed into positions that he personally finds difficult to defend on the evidence, or into positions that others “think” he ought to have.
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Posted by Ed Darrell
Nominate a history book
December 4, 2006Remember to nominate your favorite history books for the list of all-time great history books. You can do it most easily here, at the original post.
1 Comment | Books, Capturing history, Current History, History | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
Death of books, and history on video
December 3, 2006In the Eisenhower administration some wise person noted that through history, libraries have been essential to civilization. In that wisdom-tinged era, the federal government started a program to establish in every county in the U.S. a library which would contain practical information on farming, industry, health care, and government and philosophy, so that in the event a nuclear exchange wiped out great libraries in Chicago, New York, Philadelphia, Washington and Los Angeles, among other places, the knowledge and wisdom needed to rebuild America would be available to people easily, locally.
It was a good idea, I think, but chiefly because of the side effect of putting good information close to people, even without nuclear destruction. I wonder whether we have strayed.
Today, libraries abandon books in favor of electronic media, film and on-line applications at a prodigious rate. Million-book libraries, once the hallmark of a good university, now represent dated data and a backwater center of scholarship, to many.
Libraries missed the first video wave. Thinking they were about books and not television presentation of information, libraries missed the opportunity to attract customers for videos. Instead, here in the U.S. a company named Blockbuster did badly (by my estimation) the promulgation and protection of culture, for profit, that libraries should have done for free. Determined not to miss the next evolution or revolution in media, libraries now plan to adopt new media when possible, and store information in new electronic formats.
In the Netherlands, libraries plan to archive local video productions and photographs, and to digitize the data to make it more widely available. Plans are to spend 173 million euro (more than $230 million U.S. at today’s exchange rate), to archive 285,000 hours of film, video and radio recordings, and nearly 3 million photos.
Will civilization survive?
Tip of the old scrub brush to If:book, from the Institute for the Future of the Book.
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Posted by Ed Darrell
Free “classics” books for school libraries, from NEH
November 26, 2006The National Endowment for the Humanities is prepared to give away collections of classic books to school libraries.
Here is the NEH press release, unedited by me:
National Endowment for the Humanities Offers Free Classic Books to Libraries Through the We The People Bookshelf Program
WASHINGTON (Sept. 18, 2006)–The National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) today announced the fourth annual We the People Bookshelf, a program that offers sets of classic books to 2,000 community and school libraries throughout the United States. Recipients of the NEH awards program will receive a collection of 15 classics which were selected to illustrate this year’s theme, “The Pursuit of Happiness.”
The We the People Bookshelf is part of NEH’s We the People program designed to strengthen the teaching, study, and understanding of American history and culture. Again this year, NEH has partnered with the American Library Association (ALA) to distribute a set of books, posters, and educational CDs to 2,000 selected libraries that offer the best programs for young readers using the awarded materials.
“These classic books are rich in stories about individuals who embrace the ‘unalienable’ right of free people–the pursuit of happiness, a phrase written indelibly in the Declaration of Independence by Thomas Jefferson,” said NEH Chairman Bruce Cole. “Young readers will find in these books the spirit of hope that has contributed to the growth and strength of our great nation and its citizens for more than two hundred years.”
The We the People Bookshelf on “The Pursuit of Happiness” features the following books for 2007:
- Grades K-3: Aesop’s Fables by Aesop; Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening by Robert Frost; Mike Mulligan and His Steam Shovel by Virginia Lee Burton (also in Spanish).
- Grades 4-6: Tuck Everlasting by Natalie Babbitt; The Great Migration by Jacob Lawrence; These Happy Golden Years by Laura Ingalls Wilder; and Journal of Wong Ming-Chung (donated by Scholastic, Inc.) by Laurence Yep.
- Grades 7-8: A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L’Engle; Esperanza Rising (donated by Scholastic, Inc.) by Pam Munoz Ryan, (also in Spanish); and Carry On, Mr. Bowditch by Jean Lee Latham.
- Grades 9-12: Kindred by Octavia Butler; O Pioneers! by Willa Cather (also in Spanish); The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald; Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman; and Common Sense by Thomas Paine.
As a bonus, each library receiving a We the People Bookshelf set will receive a music CD, Happy Land: Musical Tributes to Laura Ingalls Wilder.
Libraries wishing to participate in the We the People Bookshelf program can find more information and application instructions online at www.neh.gov. Applications can be submitted from Sept. 19, 2006, through Jan. 31, 2007.
Media Contact: Michele Soulé at 202-606-8454
7 Comments | Books, Education, Libraries, Public libraries | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
Nominate your favorite history book!
November 24, 2006Still looking for nominations for your favorite history books of all time. You can leave nominations in the comments to this post, or here.
Please do.
2 Comments | Books, History | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
Millard Fillmore's Bathtub 