Blue Steel’s Pollyticks.com hosts the 31st Carnival of the Liberals. Not nearly so stuffy as the conservatives, and certainly much less well represented in the blogosphere, the posts carry a better information-to-rant ratio than most blog carnivals.
31st Carnival of the Liberals
January 31, 2007
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Posted by Ed Darrell
Nixon’s dead, but dirty tricks live on
January 31, 2007Do I correctly recall that President Bush suggested Republicans and Democrats can work together?
How long ago was that?
Already the right-wing hoax machine is out in force (Swift Boat Veterans again?). A couple of people sent me the latest hoax against Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, claiming she was advocating a 100% tax on incomes of the rich. To be really fair and accurate, we need to note the hoax has been circulating since at least October.
Pelosi didn’t say she favors a 100% tax. The e-mail circulating is a hoax.
Snopes.com, that grand internet ally for getting the story straight, has a debunking post up.
Here are a few of the victims of the hoax:
- Hang Right Politics (note the odd juxtaposition of the Ben Franklin quote)
- Real Texas Cowgirl
- Illinois Review
- Red Hot Pawn
- The Conservative Army
- Readers at STLtoday.com (a readers’ forum for the St. Louis Post)
- Fort Liberty
It’s almost painful to watch how quickly some people succumb to hoaxes like these. One hopes the perpetrators of the hoaxes get the same twinge of regret that Mencken got from the Fillmore bathtub hoax — but one may be hoping against experience.
So far as I can tell, no one who posted the hoax has yet corrected the post, or noted the error (in a few places, others have written in to note the hoax).
5 Comments | Accuracy, Bad Quotes, Bogus history, Current History, H. L. Mencken, Hoaxes, Politics, Quotes, Voodoo history | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
State of the Union
January 23, 2007
Clay Bennett cartoon, copyright Clay Bennett. Bennett is the editorial cartoonist for the Christian Science Monitor and winner of the Pulitzer Prize in 2002 for his editorial cartoons there.
Tonight President Bush delivers his State of the Union speech to Congress. State of the Union speeches are increasingly the only time we get to see presidents live, and that may lead to the extreme crabbiness about the speech Ed Brayton shows over at Dispatches from the Culture Wars. It’s a Constitution-required exercise (Article II, section 3), though the prime-time television broadcast and other pomp and ceremony are not mentioned.
Section 3. He shall from time to time give to the Congress information of the state of the union, and recommend to their consideration such measures as he shall judge necessary and expedient; he may, on extraordinary occasions, convene both Houses, or either of them, and in case of disagreement between them, with respect to the time of adjournment, he may adjourn them to such time as he shall think proper; he shall receive ambassadors and other public ministers; he shall take care that the laws be faithfully executed, and shall commission all the officers of the United States.
In our history as a republic, presidents have done everything from just sending the details in a letter to Congress to the current pageant. My recollection is that Richard Nixon gave the first prime-time speech — before that the speeches were given during the business day, and not broadcast live — and that Ronald Reagan was the first president to give all of his SOTUs in the evening. (I’m very willing to correct that information if you have better details.)
And while they have occasionally made history, such as Franklin Roosevelt’s 1941 SOTU (the “four freedoms”), my fondness for the events is mostly personal. Read the rest of this entry »
Leave a Comment » | Cartoons, Current History, Franklin Roosevelt, History, Political cartoons, Politics, Presidents, U.S. Constitution | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
Belgium breaking up? Who gets the beer?
January 22, 2007
Town Hall in Leuven, Belgium; image from Katholieke Universiteit Leuven
Did I really miss this last month? A television network in Belgium, RTBF, started out the morning reporting on the breakup of Belgium. Rather contrary to the rules of hoaxes set up by Orson Welles and the Mercury Theatre, no mention of a dramatization was made for at least a half-hour.
And of course, it was all a hoax. The network said they wanted to generate discussion about how Belgium works, etc., etc. Not everyone was happy with the kickoff to discussion.
I have no particular dog in that fight, though I’m fond of Belgium. My wife spent a year studying in Louvin (Louvain, Leuven) (before I knew her), and we have wonderful photos. My own business trip to Brussells was less than 24 hours, though we conducted our business in lightning fashion and were able to spend the evening in a wonderfully lit historic square sampling several brands of beer — okay, many brands. We all made it to the Oh-Dark-thirty airplane home the next morning (some in better shape than others).
It’s always an eye-opener to learn how little most people know about the country, though it plays a huge role in the European Union, in NATO, and in the history of the 20th century, especially World Wars I and II.
Now it appears even Belgians don’t know whether their nation would break up or not. Jacques Brel is no longer alive and well.
More:
- The Museum of Hoaxes looks like a good website on hoaxes.
3 Comments | Current History, Geography - Political, History, Hoaxes, Humor, Music education, Travel | Tagged: Belgium, History, Hoaxes, Humor, Travel | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
Pentagon official calls for assault on Constitution
January 13, 2007I used to marvel at the irony of attending Republican conventions in states and counties across the nation, where ceremonies would open with the recitation of the Pledge of Allegiance to the U.S. flag, and the nation, ideals and government it stands for, and where speaker after speaker would then assault every aspect of that same nation and government. In the Vietnam era and a decade afterward, frequently these speeches would include rhetorical questions like, “Do we really need a First Amendment?” in reference to protestors, or the speech of anyone that the speaker found disagreeable.
This is a new height: The New York Times reports this morning that a top Pentagon official is bothered that lawyers defend prisoners in the U.S., especially prisoners at Guantanamo Bay — somehow forgetting that lawyers are obligated to do such things by their ethical canons, their state laws and state licensing rules, and by the Constitution. Then he urges corporations who use those same lawyers to stop paying them.
Is this a joke, or can someone who has sworn to uphold the Constitution actually be so clueless?
The senior Pentagon official in charge of military detainees suspected of terrorism said in an interview this week that he was dismayed that lawyers at many of the nation’s top firms were representing prisoners at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, and that the firms’ corporate clients should consider ending their business ties.
The comments by Charles D. Stimson, the deputy assistant secretary of defense for detainee affairs, produced an instant torrent of anger from lawyers, legal ethics specialists and bar association officials, who said Friday that his comments were repellent and displayed an ignorance of the duties of lawyers to represent people in legal trouble.
The Wall Street Journal joined in the assault on the Constitution in an editorial, according to the news story.
Stanley Kubrick is dead, or I’d think that this was just a review of a Stanley Kubrick follow-up to Dr. Strangelove, or: How I Stopped Worrying and Learned to Love the Bomb.
Any corporation official who fires the company’s attorneys for representing Guantanamo Bay detainees should be fired himself — he’s acting contrary to the interests of his stockholders in getting rid of the best legal team he could hire.
How do such barbarians an anti-American people get to be officials in the Pentagon, and editorial writers at the Wall Street Journal?
More information:
- Progressive online, “Pentagon, Wall Street Journal attack lawyers”
- Editor & Publisher
- Baltimore Sun, “Defense Department Official Riles Legal Community with Comments”
- New York Times editorial, “Round up the usual lawyers”
- Washington Post editorial, “Unveiled threats”
Blog reactions:
- Best of Both Worlds, “Enemy of the Court (excerpts from WSJ editorial)
- JamesWagner.com, “U.S. official intimidates, impugns loyalty of pro bono lawyers” (with Civil War poster showing a different view)
- Andrew Sullivan – The Daily Dish, “Bush and the rule of law”
- Elf M. Sternberg, “The executive is not just incompetent, he hires thugs”
- Obsidian Wings, “Disbar him”
2 Comments | Civil Rights, Current History, Democracy, Dissent, Ethics, Iraq, Jurisprudence, Justice, Law, Patriotism, U.S. Constitution | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
Correction: Georgia also has a state pledge of allegiance
January 9, 2007David Parker at Another History Blog updates and corrects our information on state pledges of allegiance: Texas is not alone, Georgia also has a state pledge.
Georgia does not require students to say the pledge daily, however.
These provisions are often hidden away in state laws that do not index well at the legal sites I use, Findlaw.com and the Cornell University Law Library’s Legal Information Institute. Consequently, it’s quite possible I have missed other state pledges. If you know of any others, please let me know.
And, in the meantime, go check out Prof. Parker’s post. The details make the story, as always.
2 Comments | Current History, Curricula, Flag etiquette, Law, Patriotism | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
Blue Origin brings space exploration back to Texas
January 5, 2007
Texas’ regular license plate features a Space Shuttle, some stars and a crescent Moon, but a lot of Texas 8th graders are foggy on just why. I hope kids living near Houston have a better idea, since the Houston Johnson Space Center is in their area. To most kids under the age of 20 in Texas, space exploration is not a part of Texas history. I had one student in class ask why it was that in the movie version of the Apollo 13 story, the astronauts said “Houston, we have a problem.”
The drive to get a private spacecraft into commercial use has at least one company using Texas as a base. Space exploration may once again become a current event item in Texas social studies classes.
Jeff Bezos’ company, Blue Origin, tested their space craft in November, and the tardy news is bustling around the internet — and present in print and broadcast media, too. That the story is so hot on the internet should be a cue to mass media that it’s time to start paying attention.
The company’s test site is in Culberson County, in far west Texas — far away from the giant media markets in San Antonio, Houston and Dallas-Fort Worth. El Paso is the closest major market, and it’s in a different time zone from the rest of the state.
This space exploration group reverses NASA’s Houston-to-Cape Canaveral style of operations — Blue Origin is headquartered in Kent, Washington, closer to Bezos’ Amazon roots.
Blue Origin is hiring engineers, by the way.
Watch that space.
Tip of the old scrub brush to Futuresheet.
3 Comments | Current History, Geography - Physical, History, Science, Space exploration, Texas | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
29th Carnival of the Liberals!
January 3, 2007Step right up — not even one thin dime, not even one-tenth of a dollar!
The 29th Carnival of the Liberals is up over at Daylight Atheism.
And one of my blog posts is included, the one where I take Roy Moore to task for his uncharitable, anti-American views on having a Moslem in Congress. And while this is a blog of history, events have overtaken that post on the day the Carnival set up its tents — Rep. Ellison creatively pointed out the value of religious freedom and tied it to the founders (go see how.)
Go see the Carnival of the Liberals — there are a lot of posts noted there that are worthy of your attention.
1 Comment | Current History, First Amendment, Politics, Religious Freedom | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
Special on Presidents’ funerals
January 2, 2007The White House Historical Association recently published a special feature on presidents’ funerals. Their website has an interactive display worth checking out. I predict the network anchors will have this site up on their computers while they talk — it carries details of several presidents’ funerals, and a nice photo display.
I found the link through an article in the Austin American-Statesman. It mentions the print version of the historical journal, but I cannot find a link to it, nor any other mention of it (if you go to the paper’s story, note that their link to the White House Historical Association site was incorrect as of early on January 2).
Some tidbits gleaned from Ms. Faulkner’s article: The official government name for pall bearers is “body bearers.” The official name for a rifle honor corps is “firing party.” On the day after the death of a president or ex-president, a gun is fired every half hour at Army installations from reveille to retreat. On the day of burial, those installations fire a 21-gun salute at noon and a 50-gun salute (one per state) at five-second intervals following the lowering of the flag.
The Army’s Military District of Washington has prime responsibility for presidential funerals, but ex-presidents and their families are involved in the planning.
“Like most men my age, I have given a thought or two to my funeral,” Ford said in a November 2005 eulogy for presidential historian Hugh Sidey. “As a former president, I’m almost required to since the military periodically updates its own plans and each presidential family is solicited for personal touches.”
Ford had originally asked retired Time Magazine correspondent Hugh Sidey to deliver the euology at the funeral, a tip of respect to journalists in general. Unfortunately, Sidey died last year. (I also cannot find Ford’s tribute to Sidey; if you find the link, please send it along.)
Leave a Comment » | Current History, Gerald Ford, History, Presidents | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
Gerald Ford, National Park Ranger
January 1, 2007Gerald Ford was a very likable guy. Since his death last week, I have been impressed with the number of people who have stepped forward with different stories about how Ford was just a regular guy called to duty.
Researching the updating of the story about the sale of creationist books in the Grand Canyon, I stumbled into a press release from the National Park Service. It turns out that Ford is the only president ever to have worked as a National Park Ranger (well, the National Park Service itself has only been around since 1901, so that lets out about half the presidents from even the possibility — though, of course, Yellowstone was established in 1862 1872).
In the summer of 1936 Ford worked in Yellowstone National Park. He had duties that sound rather quaint and definitely antiquated today: Ford was a guard on the bear feeding truck. Bears have to fend for themselves in today’s National Parks. No, it’s not due to budget cuts in bear food. Bears do better as wild creatures, and so feeding was stopped to discourage them from becoming tame and dependent on humans.
Gerald Ford, ranger mensch.
2 Comments | Boy Scouts of America, Current History, Gerald Ford, History, Leadership, National Parks, Natural history, Natural resources, Presidents | Tagged: Boy Scouts of America, Gerald Ford, History, Leadership, National Parks, Presidents | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
Gerald Ford, nice guy
December 26, 2006Gerald Ford died today. He was 93, the longest-surviving ex-president.
When a president dies, newspapers and news magazines pull out the stops to make their coverage of the person’s life exhaustive. You’ll see a lot about Gerald Ford in the next few days.
My college internship* with the U.S. Senate took me to Washington in 1974, just after Ford had assumed the Vice Presidency under the new rules of the 25th Amendment. Ford was selected as Vice President after Spiro T. Agnew had resigned in lieu of being prosecuted for taking kickbacks from his days as governor of Maryland. Within a few months he was elevated to the presidency when Richard Nixon resigned in August 1974.
But for a few months he was President of the Senate. Starting with Spiro Agnew, vice presidents no longer spend a lot of time on Capitol Hill fulfilling their Constitutional duties as Senate leader. Hubert Humphrey had been quite active as vice president, carrying key messages from the White House to the Congress, and from Congress to the President, and pushing legislation with Lyndon Johnson, in what was surely one of the most effective legislative teams in the history of the world.
And when he was acting as President of the Senate, I first ran into Gerald Ford — literally.
I interned with the Senate Democratic Policy Committee, in the office of the late Secretary of the Senate Frank Valeo. Majority Leader Mike Mansfield (D-Mont.) signed my credentials (we didn’t have photo I.D.s in those days), and since Mansfield had so few interns, or staffers, we, and I had the run of the Capitol (and Washington, too — with Mansfield’s signature I could get into the White House press room, which was a great place to hang out then. I also had Senate floor privileges, the value of which became clear to me only years later when I staffed for another senator. As an intern I could walk on the floor at any time, and sometimes did to watch debates. Staffers generally cannot do that at will.)
Read the rest of this entry »
8 Comments | Boy Scouts of America, Current History, Gerald Ford, Presidents, Watergate scandal | 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
More atomic history: Uranium tailings
December 20, 2006
Photo at left shows work to install a permeable reactive barrier (PRB) to help clean up contamination from arsenic, molybdenum, nitrate, vanadium and uranium wastes at an EPA Superfund Site managed by the U.S. Department of Energy near Monticello, Utah. The cleanup was done under the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation and Liability Act (CERCLA), the law better known as Superfund. (DOE photo)
GOAT, the blog of High Country News, carried a short story that brought me nasty flashbacks.
Families in Monticello, Utah, wonder whether there is a connection between local clusters of leukemia the old, abandoned uranium works at the edge of town.
“Each depth had its own color. If the sun was just right, it was really pretty.” That’s how Steve Pehrson described the ponds he and his friends swam in as kids, as told to the Grand Junction Daily Sentinel. He and other Monticello, Utah, kids commonly cooled off in the tailings ponds at the uranium mill that sat on the edge of town. The kids also dug into the tailings piles, and the tailings were used in gardens and even sandboxes. Now, people in Monticello are looking into the link between these habits and cases of leukemia and other diseases that have cropped up amongst the citizenry.
If you follow that link to the Grand Junction (Colorado) Daily Sentinel, you find more stories, and more horrifying stories. Read the rest of this entry »
Leave a Comment » | Accuracy, Atomic Bomb, Boy Scouts of America, Cold War, Current History, Environmental protection, History, Public health, Science | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
Perhaps trivial, but history education is dead in England
December 17, 2006History education is dead in England. British kids don’t know enough history, so the makers of the board game, Trivial Pursuit, have modified the history questions, dumbing them down to meet the lowered expectations of failed history teaching.
The Sunday Telegraph’s on-line edition has the story.
Where once there were puzzles to stretch most players’ general knowledge across a range of subjects, now they appear to have come straight out of the pages of Heat or Hello! magazines.
Questions such as, “Who heckled Madonna at an awards ceremony for miming in her concerts?” and “What is Prince Charles’s nickname for Camilla?” are no longer confined to the entertainment category, but now count as history. (The answers are “Elton John” and “Gladys” respectively.)
Questions that tested the knowledge of players in science and history, especially, have been downgraded.
The Sunday Telegraph analysis of a random 100 question cards from the latest box of Trivial Pursuit revealed that one in 10 of the science and nature category were celebrity or popular culture-based, compared to one in a whole box of question cards from 1992.
In the history category, 62 questions in the latest version of the board game related to events in the past 10 years, compared to only 30 questions in the earlier edition.
In times gone by, in the U.S. people would work to gain the sort of knowledge that would allow them to answer the tougher questions in the old “College Bowl” quiz program. Now we lower the bar, and make the questions more trivial.
Would that explain why the U.S. and Britain both have such difficulty applying the lessons of Vietnam, or Korea, or even Gulf War I? People simply don’t know the lessons. And so it is that our education systems condemn us to repeat the mistakes of Vietnam, Korea, and Gulf War I.
Leave a Comment » | Accuracy, Bogus history, Current History, Education, Education reform, Public education | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
First woman Scoutmaster, Catherine Pollard
December 16, 2006Catherine Pollard died in Largo, Florida last week. She was 88. Catherine Pollard volunteered to be Scoutmaster for Milford, Connecticut Boy Scout Troop 13 from 1973 to 1975, when no one else would volunteer. Scout officials refused to accept her application at the time, citing a perceived need for male role models for boys. Eventually the troop dissolved when no one else stepped up as Scoutmaster.
In 1988 Boy Scouts of America abolished gender requirements on all volunteer positions, and made Ms. Pollard the first woman Scoutmaster.
A funeral service is set in Milford for Monday, December 18. Her casket will be carried on a fire truck from the Milford Fire Department, for whom she volunteered in different positions for years. When the ban on female Scout volunteers was lifted, it was the Milford FD that sponsored a troop so Pollard could be Scoutmaster. Read the rest of this entry »
52 Comments | Boy Scouts of America, Civil Rights, Current History, Leadership, Women's rights | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
Millard Fillmore's Bathtub 