Is the Supreme Court getting ready to reverse the most significant civil rights case in the past 200 years? Interesting, thought provoking stuff from a blog, Marisacat.
Here is a more cool-headed view of the case (though, perhaps not different). And here’s more. Here’s a longer discussion.
The two cases are: Parents Involved in Community Schools v. Seattle School District No. 1, and Meredith vs. Jefferson County Board of Education.
1 Comment | 
Civil Rights, Current History, Desegregation, Education reform | 
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Posted by Ed Darrell
Remembering history so as not to repeat it has academic value, sure. In public policy, it can help change things for the better. And in some cases it can literally be life and death.
Six health care professionals — five nurses and a physician, all Bulgarians — are scheduled for execution shortly in Libya for a crime that would have been almost impossible for them to have committed. They were convicted of spreading HIV to patients. Health professionals are almost unanimous in pointing out that the timing of the onset of the disease indicates that the disease was transmitted before these people came to Libya, but government-operated facilities and government-paid health care workers.
More trouble for the ignorance-as-knowledge set: Evolutionary principles, applied, allow scientists to track the real origin of the infections, exonerating the convicted workers. In short, tracking the provenance of the viruses that infected the victims rules out almost all of the possibility that the accused health care workers could have played a role. Here is a link to a free .pdf paper which lays out the exculpatory science evidence, published by the eminent science journal Nature.
Will Libya’s government listen to the evidence? Nick Matzke, a research whiz at the National Center for Science Education, has a post at Panda’s Thumb laying out most of the facts, and providing links to high quality information sources. Health professionals worldwide urge Libya’s courts to legally exonerate and free the accused.
You can help. Mike Dunford at The Questionable Authority lays out actions you can take to urge Libya to free the health workers.
Please write today.
More information:
Leave a Comment » | Accuracy, Current History, Justice, Law, Science | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
Associated Press 1941 file photo of a small boat assisting in rescue of Pearl Harbor attack victims, near the U.S.S. West Virginia, as the ship burns.
Today is the 65th anniversary of Japan’s attack on the U.S.’s Pacific Fleet at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii.
Our local newspaper, The Dallas Morning News, has a front-page story on survivors of the attack, who have met every five years in reunion at Pearl Harbor. Today will be their last official reunion. The 18-year-olds who suffered the attack, many on their first trips away from home, are in their 80s now. Age makes future reunions impractical.
From the article:
“We’re like the dodo bird. We’re almost extinct,” said Middlesworth, now an 83-year-old retiree from Upland, Calif., but then – on Dec. 7, 1941 – an 18-year-old Marine on the USS San Francisco.
Nearly 500 survivors from across the nation were expected to make the trip to Hawaii, bringing with them 1,300 family members, numerous wheelchairs and too many haunting memories.
Memories of a shocking, two-hour aerial raid that destroyed or heavily damaged 21 ships and 320 aircraft, that killed 2,390 people and wounded 1,178 others, that plunged the United States into World War II and set in motion the events that led to atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
“I suspect not many people have thought about this, but we’re witnessing history,” said Daniel Martinez, chief historian at the USS Arizona Memorial. “We are seeing the passing of a generation.”
Another article notes the work of retired history professor Ron Marcello from the University of North Texas, in Denton, in creating oral histories from more than 350 of the survivors. This is the sort of project that high school history students could do well, and from which they would learn, and from which the nation would benefit. If you have World War II veterans in your town, encourage the high school history classes to go interview the people. This opportunity will not be available forever.
There is much to be learned, Dr. Marcello said:
Dr. Marcello said that in doing the World War II history project, he learned several common themes among soldiers.
“When they get into battle, they don’t do it because of patriotism, love of country or any of that. It’s about survival, doing your job and not letting down your comrades,” he said. “I heard that over and over.”
Another theme among soldiers is the progression of their fear.
“When they first got into combat, their first thought is ‘It’s not going to happen to me.’ The next thought is ‘It might happen to me,’ and the last thought is ‘I’m living on borrowed time. I hope this is over soon,’ ” Dr. Marcello said.
Dr. Marcello said the collection started in the early 1960s. He took charge of it in 1968. Since Dr. Marcello has retired, Todd Moye has taken over as the director.
Other sources:
While this is not one of the usual dates listed by Congress, you may fly your U.S. flag today.
7 Comments | Current History, History, Lesson plans, War, World War II | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
Remember 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
Conservative, sometimes-rational commentator Dennis Prager is in a dudgeon because someone suggested that our first Muslim Member of Congress might take his oath of office on the Qur’an, rather than a Bible. Prager’s irrational rant demands that Congressmen Keith Ellison of Minnesota be stripped of his religious freedom (really — go see). He claims, using bogus history, that swearing without a Bible would be a first. That’s dead wrong.
Then-State Rep. Keith Ellison speaks at a Macalester College seminar on environmental justice and human rights, in February 2006. On November 7, Ellison was elected to represent Minnesota in the U.S. Congress, the first Muslim to be elected. Photo from Macalester College, American Studies Department.
Prager claims in his bio to have done graduate study. Would it be too much to expect him to understand the U.S. Constitution?
First, the U.S. Constitution prevents anyone from requiring any official elected to federal, state or local office, from having to take any oath on any religious book. Really. It’s in Article VI: Read the rest of this entry »
14 Comments | Accuracy, Bogus history, Current History, First Amendment, Freedom - Political, Religious Freedom, U.S. Constitution | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
Teachers in the U.S. do not get the respect they deserve, especially middle school and elementary school teachers. It’s an age old problem — Shakespeare wrote of a man being executed by a coup d’etat for knowing how to read and teaching young boys to read.
It’s still true, sadly — see Ed Brayton’s remarks at Dispatches from the Culture Wars. The Taliban in Afghanistan are literally drawing and quartering teachers.
Teachers are revolutionaries, breakers of slavery’s chains, fighters for freedom. It shouldn’t be a fight to the death. Ignorance has long knives, and uses them. As Shakespeare noted, “Small things make base men proud.” (Henry VI, Part 2, act IV, scene 1)
1 Comment | Civil Rights, Current History, Education, Freedom - Political | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
If you haven’t seen it, you may be in a minority that includes mostly people without internet access.
The story behind it is rather innocent and charming. Matt Harding, a young American computer programmer working in Australia, decided to spend a year touring the world. Somewhere along the line he got the idea to shoot video of himself dancing in various places. He posted in on YouTube. A chewing gum company saw the thing, and for reasons known only to public relations freaks and geniuses, called Matt to do it again, with better production quality, for a bit of publicity. So there are two videos of Matt Harding dancing, in exotic and interesting places.
Especially if this is new to you, you’re skeptical. Good. Kempton’s Blog was similarly skeptical, and did some research on the video, and on Matt.
Is there a lesson plan in here for history and other social studies? I think so. This can go directly to the issue of how we know what we know, and what are primary and secondary sources for history, as tested in Texas’s Assessment of Knowledge and Skills (TAKS).
There are several ways to use these videos, when I sit down to think about them for a moment, listed below the fold. Read the rest of this entry »
1 Comment | Brain learning, Classroom technology, Current History, Geography - Physical, Geography - Political, History video sources, Lesson plans, TAKS, Technology, Technology in the classroom | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
A few people have begun to understand that the internet probably can be a tool for historians, both for research and publication, and for teaching.
This column by Ralph Luker is ancient internet history — the original column ran in August 2005, more than a year ago. It names names and lists urls for serious history blogs, however. If you’re serious about history or teaching it, you’ll find something useful in it.
1 Comment | Current History, History, History blogs | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
94-year old free market champion Milton Friedman died yesterday. Many great accountings for his career will be written, I’m sure — here is the New York Times notice.
Milton Friedman in 1964 – New York Times photo
At the end of the 20th century, it certainly appeared that Friedman was more right than Keynes, and almost diametrically opposed to Marx. There are questions about whether free markets will be able to pull the former Soviet Union out of its economic woes, however, and we have run into a lot of questions about how to establish the free markets that guarantee political freedom in nations in Africa, Asia and South America.
Friedman was the greatest exponent of school vouchers in America, a view that I found had intellectual appeal but which, to me, fails to win any respect in actual practice, especially when the voucher programs hammer away at the foundations of public education (such as the public schools Friedman attended) by systematically choking off funding for public education.
I for one will miss his voice in these debates. It was a well-educated, gentle voice, tempered by reason and a lot of common sense. Free market economists grow almost abundant these days. There will never be another Friedman.
Update: Nice tributes and serious criticism. A friend uses an exercise in class requiring students to write obituaries for famous economists — Friedman’s death offers ample opportunities to collect real obits to use for examples. See some of the comments, such as:
Nothing about Friedman is up yet at The Becker-Posner Blog. If they do anything at all on Friedman, it will be worth the read.
7 Comments | Adam Smith, Current History, Economics, Freedom - Economic, Freedom - Political, Public education, School vouchers | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
Stu Hasic argues that a photo from the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) “killed God,” or at least the notion that God played a role in creation.
Where do bloggers get such fantastic, erroneous ideas? My educated guess is that most preachers looking at this photograph of hundreds of galaxies (no, not individual stars), deep in space and therefore deep back in time, would be awestruck — and were they to preach about it, they’d call this evidence of God’s hand in creation, making a leap in logic and faith about equal to that of Hasic, but in the opposite direction. Hasic’s post nicely encapsulates some of the knowledge we get from the photo, but then he leaps to an unwarranted conclusion.
Hasic argues that since the photo is a brilliant refutation of some of the less scientific claims of creationism, it disproves God.
If Man is the purpose of creation, why did it take so long to create Man? And what’s with all the over-the-top elaborate sky decorations? Surely some painted white dots on a big canvas hung around the Earth would have sufficed?
Thanks should go to Hubble for opening our eyes. If only some men would open theirs. Being a Christian or being a Muslim means being different. Being a Human means being the same.
I can’t speak for all Christians, of course, but I’d wager most Christians would agree with Hasic’s last sentence there: Being a human means being the same as other humans. That’s rather the point of much of scripture (see Ecclesiastes, for many examples). I would also note that most Christians like the Hubble photos as much as anyone else. Photos of “star incubators” (see end of the post for an example) are among the more popular images in religious publications in the last decade. Contrary to Hasic’s assertion, the photo offers no challenge at all to any belief of most Christians. Read the rest of this entry »
13 Comments | Accuracy, Astronomy, Current History, Physics, Religion, Research, Science, Science and faith | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
I stumbled on an interesting film project, to tell the story of Iraq veterans readjusting to life in the U.S. after duty in Iraq. On this day after Veterans’ Day, you may be looking for ways to honor vets. Donating to the completion of this movie is one way. You be the judge.
The film’s working title is “Reserved to Fight,” focusing on one of the first Army Reserve units called to duty in Iraq, and what happens to four of the members of the unit upon their return. The unit is Fox Company, 2nd Battalion, 23rd Marines, whose home is Salt Lake City, Utah. The film’s director is Chantelle Squires, a film student at Brigham Young University. Film production classes there are generally top-notch. The project will be well done, and the content should be compelling in almost any production.
We need not wait for a latter-day Clint Eastwood to chronicle these events 50 years from now, as he has done for veterans of Iwo Jima in the film Flags of Our Fathers. (See my earlier posts here, and here.) I hope to see more efforts to record this war’s history, in any medium.
Tip of the old scrub brush to Utah Boy.
6 Comments | Current History, History, History video sources, Iraq, War | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
Just in time for the November 2006 local, state and national elections, we get the Carnival of Education #91, over at Median Sib.
One indication that this is not a normal election year is this fact: Education is not the chief issue in any state, nor in most local races. With the release of the Fordham Foundation study last week that showed education reform is foundering and floundering, with the great difficulty in Texas in getting court-ordered education reform through the legislature, with record college tuition costs, etc., etc., etc., education still is not the top concern of most Americans.
I wonder: Were education the top issue, would Republicans be in better shape, or worse shape?
Textbooks are in the news — with a solid legal and ethical question about whether accepting equipment to deliver material to students amounts to bribery, as California alleges (in a post at California LiveWire). It’s an incredibly salient question. The U.S. Department of Education used to leverage its limited budget for automation by requiring groups that provided computer services for which the department contracted to provide the department with computers to monitor the products. When I discovered the practice I thought it a very innovative way to get compliance with the law; unless the California officials were using the equipment for their own gain, I wonder how any state official can justify removing from the classroom machines that are used to deliver quality education. Where is the Gubernator when he’s needed?
Next week’s Carnival of Education will hit the day after the elections; will it reflect changes wrought on Tuesday night, if any? The 92nd Carnival of Education will be hosted by NYC Educator. Submissions are due Tuesday night — of course, you’re excused if you’re out at the election party, celebrating. (Notice how cleverly that applies regardless your politics — or mine.)
Leave a Comment » | Current History, Education, Education reform, Politics, Public education, State school boards | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
Many of us still remember it as Saigon.
In holding on to history, people need to start somewhere. To cure ignorance of Vietnamese history, Ho Chi Minh City officials are posting banners honoring women in Vietnam history, according to that story at Viet Q.
Citizens view a poster relating the role of women in Vietnam history.
Would posting history in the street work in Dallas? In Houston? In Chicago, New York, Los Angeles or Boise?
Last summer, on the way to Scout summer camp, Troop 355 from Duncanville, Texas, stopped for a night in Memphis, Tennessee. After dinner (at Hard Rock Cafe, where we discovered the waitress had an Eagle Scout boyfriend and the waiter was an ex-Scout who still loves backpacking), I noticed there on Beale Street a chunk of history required for Texas students, in the Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills (TEKS): Across the street from Hard Rock Cafe was the historical marker for the site of Ida Tarbell’s newspaper reporting days. No, I couldn’t interest a single kid in walking across the street to read the marker, though Ida Tarbell tends to show up on tests with some regularity.
I wonder where the Ho Chi Minh City officials got the idea?
(The Ida Tarbell historic marker is just out of this picture, to the right)
1 Comment | Current History, History, Pedagogy, Public education, TEKS | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
You know what? It’s not easy tracking down the elementary and high school records of Nobel winners! Most biographies of Nobelists skip from “born in the city of . . .” to “Ph.D. at . . . ” without noting elementary, junior high or high schools. I’ve noted before, I track this issue half-heartedly as a 30-second response to the claim that private schooling is vastly superior to public schooling. Can’t tell that from Nobel winners.
I know Andy Fire, the 2006 Nobel winner in Physiology or Medicine, attended public schools. From the op- editorial in the Daytona Beach, Florida, News-Journal, I know that Fire attended Hollenbeck Elementary School in Sunnyvale, California. I also know he was picked on by bullies. The full story is below the fold. Read the rest of this entry »
1 Comment | Current History, Education, Public education | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
The Peace Nobel pleased and surprised a lot of fans of Grameen Bank and Muhammad Yunus. Here is a post that poses an interesting and encouraging question, “Can a man make a difference in the world with just 27 dollars?” The post features several links to other comments.
How long before the backlash against microlending begins to be heard? Five, four, three, two . . .
3 Comments | Current History, Economics, Leadership | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
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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 