The really good news is that Bill Moyers will be back in January, with “Bill Moyers and Company.”
Details at Bill Moyers.com, where you can see this vintage critique of current politics (even though it’s a year and a half old).
Bill Moyers Essay: Plutocracy and Democracy Don’t Mix from BillMoyers.com on Vimeo.
Moyers broadcast this in his farewell performance on Bill Moyer’s Journal, April 30, 2010
Text of his remarks below the fold.
11 Comments | 
Citizenship, Democracy, Democracy in action, Journalism, Politics | Tagged: Bill Moyers, Citizenship, Democracy, Journalism, Plutocracy, Politics | 
Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
To complain about the horrific defense of the child maiming, rape-sowing, war-crimes committing “Lord’s Resistance Army” made by Rush Limbaugh the other day, I sought out the Dallas-Fort Worth station that carries the program. Limbaugh’s show is carried on WBAP-AM in the Dallas-Fort Worth area. So I dropped an e-mail to the station to ask if they support Rush’s views, and asking how they will try to rein in the rogue talker.
No answer, yet, of course.
But on the way I ran into something that made me laugh, even if you don’t find it funny.
I went to Limbaugh’s site to check for transcripts, and to find which station in this area carries his program (no, I am not a regular listener by any stretch.
WBAP-AM 1320 was one of the early “clear channel” stations in the U.S., a 50,000-watt powerhouse whose signal could cover from San Francisco to just west of the Appalachians on a night with the appropriate weather. 25 years ago truckers used it as a beacon (and may still for all I know — I’ve not ridden with the long-haul truckers since I got to Texas). It’s a famous station, and Rush Limbaugh should be flattered that they would carry his excrement program.
So I found “Texas,” and I found WBAP listed in Fort Worth (no one else in Dallas). Here’s the line the listing was on, copied from Limbaugh’s site; click on “WBAP” and see where you go:
| Fort Worth | WBAP-AM | 820 | M-F 11a-2p |
It says “WBAP-AM” in Fort Worth, Texas; but it takes you to WBAB, 102.3 FM on Long Island, New York. WBAB 102.3 is a rock ‘n roll station. It ain’t WBAP-AM 1320 in Fort Worth, not by a longhorn steer’s horn spread.
I wonder how long the Limbaugh show has had the wrong URL for the station in Fort Worth, and I wonder if it has made any difference in listeners getting through or advertisers. I wonder how long it will remain with the wrong URL, and whether anyone cares at WBAP, WBAB, or the Limbaugh show.
Maybe I should just write directly to the “license renewal file” at the FCC.
14 Comments | Citizenship, Humor, Politics, Radio | Tagged: Broadcasting, Citizenship, Humor, Politics, Rush Limbaugh, WBAP-AM 1320 Fort Worth | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
U.S. flags wave at DFW National Cemetery, May 30, 2010. Photo by Ed Darrell
Our local Rotary Club provides a U.S. flag planted in your yard for flag-flying events from Memorial Day through Labor Day, for an annual subscription of about $15.00. Local groups, including especially Boy Scouts, Cub Scouts and Girl Scouts, take a route and plant the flags.
As a consequence, our town is loaded with flags on a weekend like this one.
But even if you don’t subscribe to a flag service, please remember to fly your flag today.
Memorial Day honors people who died in defense of the nation. Armed Forces Day honors those who serve currently, celebrated the third Saturday in May. Veterans Day honors the veterans who returned.
On Memorial Day itself, flags on poles or masts should be flown at half-staff from sunrise to noon. At noon, flags should be raised to full-staff position.
When posting a flag at half-staff, the flag should be raised to the full-staff position first, with vigor, then slowly lowered to half-staff; when retiring a flag posted at half-staff, it should be raised to the full staff position first, with vigor, and then be slowly lowered. Some people attach black streamers to stationary flags, though this is not officially recognized by the U.S. Flag Code.
On Memorial Day, 3:00 p.m. local time is designated as the National Moment of Remembrance.
Memorial Day traditionally came on May 30, but now comes on the last Monday in May. In 2011 the last Monday happens to be May 30, a nice blend of tradition and formal law.
Flag flies at a home in North Carolina's Outer Banks
4 Comments | Citizenship, Flag etiquette, Fly your flag today, History, veterans | Tagged: Citizenship, Flag etiquette, Fly your flag today, History, Memorial Day, veterans | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
Armed Forces Day honors those Americans who are, today, protecting our freedom, under arms, in the U.S. military services.
Veterans Day honors those who protected us in the past. Memorial Day honors those who died in our nation’s service, and those veterans who have passed on. Armed Forces Day honors and celebrates living Americans, to whom we owe immediate thanks.
Fly your flag today in their honor. Today is Armed Forces Day 2011.
The slogan on this year’s poster: Our Troops, and Those Supporting Them Back Home, Are United in Strength.
2011 Armed Forces Day poster
Previously, in Millard Fillmore’s Bathtub:
5 Comments | Citizenship, Flag etiquette, Fly your flag today, History, Patriotism, veterans | Tagged: Air Force, Armed Forces Day 2011, Army, Citizenship, Coast Guard, Flag etiquette, History, Marines, Navy, Patriotism, U.S. Flag, veterans | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
The artist shows the voter aiming much lower than the real damage, even to the opposite end of the body.
7 Comments | Citizenship, Humor, Republican Party | Tagged: Citizenship, Class Warfare, Humor, Politics, Republican, voting | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
Another local newspaper op-ed, this time from Burlington, Vermont (yeah, I know — a Gannett paper — still, smaller than Dallas). This comes from the March 4 edition of the Burlington Free Press’s “I Believe” series:
I Believe: ‘We have a responsibility to learn about climate change
by Joan Knight
“If politicians remain at loggerheads, citizens must lead.”
— Dr. James E. Hansen, physicist, director of NASA Goddard InstituteI was impressed when I attended a recent meeting with a group of volunteer activists forming a Vermont chapter of the Citizens Climate Lobby. This group is different, I thought. It might actually work. As a newly retired 72-year-old, I was looking for a new focus, and found it.
Religious groups use the word “creation.” Most people say “nature.” Academics speak of global ecology. Deep ecologists who view Earth as one living being say “Gaia,” in reverential tones, meaning our planet and its atmosphere is a living “body.” Its “cells” include us humans, plants, forests, microbes. All life is tied together by dynamic, interdependent relationships. Most native peoples sense that all beings are like sisters and brothers — members of the same family.
I understand. It started for me as a young child with what Rachel Carlson called a sense of wonder. Grasses back-lit by the setting sun; starfish in tide pools crawling about among colorful mats of living plants and fungi. It was a more spiritual experience than was going to church under parental orders. Nature really mattered.
Growing older, I revered the writing of Rachel Carson, David Brower, John Muir, Aldo Leopold, Wendell Berry and so many more. I still feel abiding love for it all. I believe in Earth as a planetary living being.
It is clear that our family of All Beings is suffering.
Climate change. Global warming. Is it real? Is it a problem? Why are the changes happening? There is controversy about the answers to these questions. The collapse of climate and energy legislation last year in Congress was a relief to some in big business.
Natural laws or physics and chemistry are in action. The climate is warming faster than it ever has. Weather patterns are strange and tragic. Species are becoming extinct. Predictions of the end of nature (Bill McKibben’s 1984 book title) are common now. What if the scientists are right? We don’t need all the answers to figure out that something awful is going on.
Can we slow down the rate of change? Yes. Can we stop the climate from warming too much? It’s not likely, but I believe we must try. Should we let it happen while we enjoy our greenhouse-gas-producing lifestyles? Some family members deny the reality that their loved one has a serious illness and is likely to die prematurely. We humans have an interesting default to denial. This does happen. Might some of us, similarly, deny that our planet is critically ill?
Most of us agree that conservation of energy and resources is good for us and for the environment. We are changing our personal lifestyles. We have changed our light bulbs to compact fluorescents; we vacation closer to home; we’re working to improve the efficiency of our buildings.
Many of us also become members of environmental organizations. We read their magazines, put in bird feeders to enjoy nature, donate money and sign petitions in the attempt to show our legislators how we would like them to vote. Here in Vermont, we even talk with state legislators and are proud we are the “green state” — cherishing our remaining cows in pastoral landscapes and our forests for both wildlife and recreation. We’re thankful our delegation to the Congress “gets it.”
There are many grassroots activists successfully influencing lawmakers on a town and state level. But we know that states tend to make changes in laws and budgets in response to constraints brought on by federal legislation and financing. Are there ways to really influence federal representatives and senators? Paid lobbyists do it on a massive scale. Money speaks. But what about us?
The Citizens Climate Lobby believes in an approach by which ordinary people influence the federal “deciders” enough to sometimes change their votes. The influential people take the trouble to learn about and appreciate some things an individual legislator has done, seek to discover common ground, listen respectfully and talk in a collaborative way. After discovering what information would be relevant, they come back to provide it. In this comfortable way of relating, ordinary people do make a difference.
As citizens of this country we have a responsibility to learn about climate change, solutions and how to take part in the democratic process. We can sit down for a conversation and tell our legislators what we care about and why. We can write letters. It’s really our job as citizens to share these thoughts with our legislators, if we ever hope to be truly represented by them.
That’s where the new Citizens’ Climate Lobby comes in. The group gives us the tools we need. There is a monthly conference call with a leading thinker who will help keep us informed of the latest issues, and an opportunity to practice speaking with each other about those issues. We work together to help our legislators hear the non-confrontational message: We want a healthy planet for our kids and grandkids.
If I dare to step forward to lobby my representative, I want to learn how, to practice, to feel supported by kindred spirits, to know it’s OK to make mistakes and keep on gaining new knowledge and skills. I’m up for it. And I hope many of you will consider joining us as we begin making our voices heard where it matters most.
Check out the Citizens Climate Lobby website, and get information about how to join in on the next national conference call. This one will be focused on messaging — the importance of context and delivery. This organization seeks to empower each of us to have breakthroughs in our personal power, to be heard and to be counted. It feels good to be a part of a supportive web of passionate citizens.
Join us. Talk with an active member on the phone, go to the website (www.citizensclimatelobby.org), find the lobby on Facebook.
It’s not too late to make a difference. We have been lazy in hoping someone else would do the right thing, that sending a check to an organization and signing an online petition was enough. It’s time for folks, including myself, to step up and be heard.
Real grass roots politics, from a woman concerned enough about the issue to think historically, and to read broadly about it.
Citizenship is wonderful to behold, when it is practiced so nobly and elegantly.
What else might we learn, if we really listened to the people?
Masthead for the home page of Citizens Climate Lobby - click to see
Leave a Comment » | Citizenship, Climate change, climate_change, Global warming, Green Politics, Newspapers, Politics | Tagged: Burlington Vermont, Citizens Climate Lobby, Climate change, Global warming, Green Politics, Joan Knight, Newspapers, Politics | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
I get e-mail — with a few million others, I’m sure:
Ed —
Today, we are filing papers to launch our 2012 campaign.
We’re doing this now because the politics we believe in does not start with expensive TV ads or extravaganzas, but with you — with people organizing block-by-block, talking to neighbors, co-workers, and friends. And that kind of campaign takes time to build.
So even though I’m focused on the job you elected me to do, and the race may not reach full speed for a year or more, the work of laying the foundation for our campaign must start today.
We’ve always known that lasting change wouldn’t come quickly or easily. It never does. But as my administration and folks across the country fight to protect the progress we’ve made — and make more — we also need to begin mobilizing for 2012, long before the time comes for me to begin campaigning in earnest.
As we take this step, I’d like to share a video that features some folks like you who are helping to lead the way on this journey. Please take a moment to watch:
In the coming days, supporters like you will begin forging a new organization that we’ll build together in cities and towns across the country. And I’ll need you to help shape our plan as we create a campaign that’s farther reaching, more focused, and more innovative than anything we’ve built before.
We’ll start by doing something unprecedented: coordinating millions of one-on-one conversations between supporters across every single state, reconnecting old friends, inspiring new ones to join the cause, and readying ourselves for next year’s fight.
This will be my final campaign, at least as a candidate. But the cause of making a lasting difference for our families, our communities, and our country has never been about one person. And it will succeed only if we work together.
There will be much more to come as the race unfolds. Today, simply let us know you’re in to help us begin, and then spread the word:
http://my.barackobama.com/2012
Thank you,
Barack
2 Comments | 2012 Campaigns, 2012 Elections, Barack Obama, Campaigns, Citizenship, Democratic Party, President Obama, Presidents | Tagged: Barack Obama, Campaign 2012, Campaigns, Citizenship, Democracy, Democratic Party, Politics, Presidency | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
Ready to start dialing? It’s time to dial to save your country.
MoveOn.org asks Texans to phone their U.S. senators for help:
Dear Ed,
Heads up: Congress is debating a budget plan that would be devastating to Texas. Will you pass this along?
Senators Kay Hutchison and John Cornyn need to hear from all of us about it right now, before they cut a deal in the next few days.
Please spread the word about all of these proposed cuts to Texas:
- $98 million would be cut from federal funds for clean and safe water in Texas.1
- 12,000 Texas children would be immediately cut from Head Start, which provides comprehensive early childhood development services for at-risk children ages zero to five.2
- $391 million would be cut from Pell Grants, affecting all 664,000 higher education students with those grants in Texas.3
- Job training and employment services would be effectively eliminated for 5,800 dislocated workers, 99,000 low-income adults, and 16,000 youths age 14 to 21.4
- $10 million would be cut from law enforcement assistance, taking cops off the beat.5
It’s especially galling when the same budget protects tax breaks for corporations like GE and the very rich.
Just last night the news broke that Congress may be close to striking a deal on the budget. Now is the only time we can influence the outcome.
Can you call Sens. Hutchison and Cornyn and ask them to oppose these cuts in the budget? You can pick one of the cuts in this list to highlight in your call.
Senator Kay Hutchison
Phone: 202-224-5922Senator John Cornyn
Phone: 202-224-2934Click to report your call. Then pass this email along locally!
http://pol.moveon.org/call?tg=FSTX_1.FSTX_2&cp_id=1547&id=26722-5763840-yqXs_sx&t=2
The cuts that the Republicans are proposing would disproportionately hit those who can least afford it in Texas, and it’s up to us to stop them.
Thanks for all you do.
-Daniel, Amy, Milan, Tate, and the rest of the team
Sources:
1. “House Bill Means Fewer Children in Head Start, Less Help for Students to Attend College, Less Job Training, and Less Funding for Clean Water,” Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, March, 1, 2010
http://www.cbpp.org/cms/index.cfm?fa=view&id=34052. “Projected Reduction in Children Served in Head Start Based on H.R. 1—Fiscal Year 2011 Continuing Resolution,” Center for Law and Social Policy
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=207278&id=26722-5763840-yqXs_sx&t=33. “House Bill Means Fewer Children in Head Start, Less Help for Students to Attend College, Less Job Training, and Less Funding for Clean Water,” Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, March, 1, 2010
http://www.cbpp.org/cms/index.cfm?fa=view&id=34054. Ibid
5. Ibid
Want to support our work? We’re entirely funded by our 5 million members—no corporate contributions, no big checks from CEOs. And our tiny staff ensures that small contributions go a long way. Chip in here.
Meanwhile, the Texas House of Representatives scheduled the start of debate on H. 1 for Friday, April 1 — the budget resolution that would gut Texas schools and higher education, and set Texas on a course of decline that will make California’s troubles look serene by comparison.
NEA’s Texas affiliate, the Texas State Teachers’ Association, asks teachers to call their Texas representatives to weigh in against the drastic budget cuts (and you can call, too):
March 30, 2011
House Bill 1 is an assault on the public schools!
This Friday, April 1, the Texas House of Representatives is scheduled to begin debate on House Bill 1, its version of the state budget for 2012-2013. If this bill were to become law in its present form, it would cut almost $8 billion from public education and, with it, tens of thousands of school district jobs.
Unfortunately, this is no April Fool’s joke.
It is, instead, the proposal of a state leadership that would rather plug a huge hole in the state budget by firing teachers, packing kids into overcrowded classrooms and closing neighborhood schools than by adequately investing in our state’s future.
NOW is the time to call your legislator and let him or her know what these budget cuts will mean in your classroom, your school and your community. We must stop House Bill 1, and your call is critical!
To contact your state representative, call 800-260-5444, and we will connect you [That’s the number for TSTA members, but try it — I’ll bet they’ll accept your help!]. You can call any time, day or night, but you need to call before Friday. Leaving a voice message with your representative’s office is just as good as talking to a staff member.
It is important to include the following points in your conversation or message:
- Your name, that you are a TSTA member and that you live and vote in their district.
- An overwhelming number of people in your community – parents, teachers and other taxpayers – oppose cuts that would harm public schools.
- Your own story, how laying off educators, cramming children into crowded classrooms and closing neighborhood schools would have a harmful impact on your students and community.
- Ask your representative to find the revenue necessary to avoid harmful budget cuts, restore full education funding and end this assault on our public schools.
This will take only a few minutes of your time, and it will be time well spent. Your representative needs to hear from you before Friday!
Pick up your telephone and strike a blow for freedom, democracy, education and sanity in government.
22 Comments | Citizenship, Education, Education reform, Education spending, Government, Politics, Texas Lege, U.S. Congress, U.S. Senate | Tagged: Budgets, Citizenship, Education, Government, H. 1, John Cornyn, Kay Hutchison, Politics, Texas, Texas Lege, U.S. Senate | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
E=energy; m=mass; c=speed of light
Happy Einstein Day! Almost fitting that he was born on π Day, no? I mean, is there an E=mc² Day?
Albert Einstein was born on March 14, 1879, in Ulm, Germany, to Hermann and Pauline Einstein. 26 years later, three days after his birthday, he sent off the paper on the photo-electric effect, the paper that would win him the Nobel Prize in Physics five years later, in 1921. In that same year of 1905, he published three other papers, solving the mystery of Brownian motion, describing what became known as the Special Theory of Relativity and solving the mystery of why measurements of the light did not show any effects of motion as Maxwell had predicted, and a final paper that noted a particle emitting light energy loses mass. This final paper amused Einstein because it seemed so ludicrous in its logical extension that energy and matter are really the same stuff at some fundamental point, as expressed in the equation demonstrating an enormous amount of energy stored in atoms, E=mc².
Albert Einstein as a younger man - Nobel Foundation image
Any one of the papers would have been a career-capper for any physicist. Einstein dashed them off in just a few months, forever changing the field of physics. And, you noticed: Einstein did not win a Nobel for the Special Theory of Relativity, nor for E=mc². He won it for the photo electric effect. Irony in history.
106 years later Einstein’s work affects us every day. Relativity theory at some level I don’t understand makes possible the use Global Positioning Systems (GPS), which revolutionized navigation and mundane things like land surveying and microwave dish placement. Development of nuclear power both gives us hope for an energy-rich future, and gives us fear of nuclear war. Sometimes, even the hope of the energy rich future gives us fear, as we watch and hope nuclear engineers can control the piles in nuclear power plants damaged by earthquakes and tsunami in Japan.
If Albert Einstein was a genius at physics, he was more dedicated to pacifism. He resigned his German citizenship to avoid military conscription. His pacifism made the German Nazis nervous; Einstein fled Germany in the 1930s, eventually settling in the United States. In the U.S., he was persuaded by Leo Szilard to write to President Franklin Roosevelt to suggest the U.S. start a program to develop an atomic weapon, because Germany most certainly was doing exactly that. But Einstein refused to participate in the program himself, sticking to his pacifist views. Others could, and would, design and build atomic bombs. (Maybe it’s a virus among nuclear physicists — several of those working on the Manhattan Project were pacifists, and had great difficulty reconciling the idea that the weapon they worked on to beat Germany, was deployed on Japan, which did not have a nuclear weapons program.)
Einstein was a not-great father, and probably not a terribly faithful husband at first — though he did think to give his first wife a share of a Nobel Prize should he win it in the divorce settlement. Einstein was a good violinist, a competent sailor, an incompetent dresser, and a great character. His sister suffered a paralyzing stroke. For many months Albert spent hours a day reading to her the newspapers and books of the day, convinced that mute and appearing unconscious, she would benefit from hearing the words. He said he did not hold to orthodox religions, but could there be a greater show of faith in human spirit?
Einstein in 1950, five years before his death
When people hear clever sayings, but forget to whom the bon mots should be attributed, Einstein is one of about five candidates to whom all sorts of things are attributed, though he never said them. (Others include Lincoln, Jefferson, Mark Twain and Will Rogers). Einstein is the only scientist in that group. So, for example, we can be quite sure Einstein never claimed that compound interest was the best idea of the 20th century. This phenomenon is symbolic of the high regard people have for the man, even though so few understand what his work was, or meant.
A most interesting man. A most important body of work. He deserves more study and regard than he gets.
More, Resources:
Leave a Comment » | Albert Einstein, Atomic Bomb, Biography, Citizenship, Franklin Roosevelt, History, Manhattan Project, Physics, Science | Tagged: 1941-1945, Albert Einstein, Atomic Bomb, Biography, Citizenship, Einstein, Franklin Roosevelt, History, Leo Szilard, Physics, pi Day, Relativity, Science, World War II | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
XKCD cartoon on difficulty of dealing with fascists in jurisdictions where Godwin's Law applies
Earlier today I stumbled on this claim that Godwin’s Law has been suspended:
3. Godwin’s Law
Made obsolete by the Neocons.
Thanks to the Neocons, Godwin’s law is now obsolete.
And then Jim made me smile with this one, in comments down below that really need to be lifted up a bit to higher visibility:
The Anarcho-Libertarianism advocated by the Tea Party and much of the modern GOP is far, far more dangerous. You see, say what you will about the Fascists…but they make the trains run on time. Under the Anarcho-Libertarians, there either ARE no trains…or they operate when and where the privatized rail companies please…and without such pesky intrusions or encumbrances like safety checks. Who needs safe tracks anyway? Let the buyer beware, right? Sure…the market will solve everything. If one trainload of passengers (or toxic waste) derails…not to worry! The free market fairies will sprinkle their magic free market dust all over the wreckage and next time…it won’t happen. Probably. Maybe. Well…what do you expect? We can’t have gub’mint involved, can we?
And of course, the screaming irony here behind trains and fascism and anarcho-conservatism and Scott Walker is that he queered the deal on high speed rail to begin with. Who needs thousands of new jobs in this humming economy?
Yeah, I know. I am all over the place on this one. But I really do agree with you. Equating Governor Walker with a stupid and evil form of governance like fascism is just plain wrong.
And an insult to fascists.
Of course, Leo Strauss’s reductio ad hitlerum does not mean that, anyone’s noting that an idea’s having been shared by Hitler does not make it bad, also does not make the idea good.
Yeah, I tracked the cartoon down — it is, indeed, from XKCD.
21 Comments | Citizenship, Humor, Politics | Tagged: Citizenship, Civility, Humor, Politics, Scott Walker, Wisconsin | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
Today is the 51st anniversary of the Greensboro sit-in. Be sure to read Howell Raines’ criticism of news media coverage of civil rights issues in last year’s New York Times: “What I am suggesting is that the one thing the South should have learned in the past 50 years is that if we are going to hell in a handbasket, we should at least be together in a basket of common purpose.”
Four young men turned a page of history on February 1, 1960, at a lunch counter in a Woolworth’s store in Greensboro, North Carolina.
Ezell A. Blair, Jr. (now Jibreel Khazan), Franklin E. McCain, Joseph A. McNeil, and David L. Richmond, sat down at the counter to order lunch. Because they were African Americans, they were refused service. Patiently, they stayed in their seats, awaiting justice.
On July 25, nearly six months later, Woolworth’s agreed to desegregate the lunch counter. One more victory for non-violent protest.
Ezell A. Blair, Jr. (now Jibreel Khazan), Franklin E. McCain, Joseph A. McNeil, and David L. Richmond leave the Woolworth store after the first sit-in on February 1, 1960. (Courtesy of Greensboro News and Record) (Smithsonian Institution)
News of the “sit-in” demonstration spread. Others joined in the non-violent protests from time to time, 28 students the second day, 300 the third day, and some days up to 1,000. The protests spread geographically, too, to 15 cities in 9 states.
Smithsonian caption: "On the second day of the Greensboro sit-in, Joseph A. McNeil and Franklin E. McCain are joined by William Smith and Clarence Henderson at the Woolworth lunch counter in Greensboro, North Carolina. (Courtesy of Greensboro News and Record)"
Part of the old lunch counter was salvaged, and today is on display at the Smithsonian Institution’s Museum of American History. The museum display was the site of celebratory parties during the week of the inauguration as president of Barack Obama.
Part of the lunchcounter from the Woolworth's store in Greensboro, North Carolina, is now displayed at the Smithsonian's Museum of American History, in Washington, D.C.
Notes and resources:
Student video, American History Rules, We Were There – First person story related by Georgie N. and Greg H., with pictures:
Associated Press interview with Franklin E. McCain:
This is mostly an encore post.
6 Comments | A Good Story, Bill of Rights, Citizenship, Civil Rights, Dissent, Museums, Nonviolent protest, U.S. Congress | Tagged: Bill of Rights, Civil Rights, Constitution, David L. Richmond, Franklin E. McCain, Greensboro North Carolina, Jibreel Khazan, Jospeh A. McNeil, Lunch Counter, Museums, Nonviolence, Nonviolent protest, Sit-in, Smithsonian, Woolworth's | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
From Yahoo! today:
Think you could pass a U.S. Citizenship exam? From easy questions like, “Who is the president of the United States?” to harder questions that might stump the average American, we take a look at the exam to become an official U.S. citizen.
Vodpod videos no longer available.
[Well, Vodpod seems to be quite dead, and with it that Yahoo! video. Try this one from Curious John]
Do you feel lucky, punk? Well . . . do you?
Resources, more information:
A list of questions posed in this video, below the fold.
1 Comment | Citizenship, Government, History, Immigration, who knew | Tagged: Citizenship, Citizenship test, Government, History, Immigration, Who knew? | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
2 Comments | Citizenship, Flag etiquette, Fly your flag today, History, Patriotism, veterans, War | Tagged: Citizenship, Fly your flag, History, Patriotism, veterans, Veterans Day, Wars | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
4 Comments | 2010 Elections, Citizenship, Economics, Elections, History, Politics | Tagged: Citizenship, Economics, Elections, History, Politics, Vote | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
News came out during the Jamboree, but yesterday in Seattle the Boy Scouts of America made it tangibly official.
Microsoft founder and philanthropist Bill Gates, Jr. received the Silver Buffalo Award, the highest honor BSA gives to any Scouter.
Gates was a Life Scout; his father, William Gates, Sr., is an Eagle Scout. The awards ceremony was scheduled to include members of Gates’s Cub Scout Pack 144 and Boy Scout Troop 186.
Microsoft founder Bill Gates receiving the Silver Buffalo award from Boy Scouts of America. BBC image
More:
2 Comments | Boy Scouts of America, Citizenship, Heroes, Leadership, Technology | Tagged: Bill Gates, Boy Scouts of America, Citizenship, computers, Leadership, Silver Buffalo | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
You are currently browsing the archives for the Citizenship category.
Ed Darrell on Texas's Colorado River
Come on in, the water's fine. Come often: Cleanliness is next to godliness.
Millard Fillmore's Bathtub 