January 13, 2008
Thomas Nast helped bring down the crooks at Tammany Hall with cartoons. Boss Tweed, the chief antagonist of Nast, crook and leader of the Tammany Gang, understood that Nast’s drawings could do him in better than just hard hitting reporting — the pictures were clear to people who couldn’t read.
But a cartoon has to get to an audience to have an effect.
Here’s one below, a comment on the security wall being built in Israel, that got very little circulation in the west at Christmas time. Can you imagine the impact had this drawing run in newspapers in Europe, the U.S., and Canada?
It’s a mashup of a famous oil painting related to the Christian Nativity, from a London-based artist who goes by the name Banksy. (Warning: Banksy pulls no punches; views shown are quite strong, often very funny, always provocative, generally safe for work unless you work for an authoritarian like Dick Cheney who wants no counter opinions.)
Tip of the old scrub brush to Peoples Geography.
Spread the word; friends don't allow friends to repeat history.
3 Comments | 
Art, Cartoons, Dissent, History, Palestine, Political cartoons | Tagged: Art, Banksy, Cartoons, Dissent, Israel's Wall, Mary and Joseph, Media, Palestine, Political cartoons, Politics | 
Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
January 13, 2008
January 13, 1794, President George Washington signed the law adding two stars and two stripes to the U.S. flag, after Vermont and Kentucky joined the union.
This was the only U.S. flag ever officially to have more than 13 stripes.
Replica of the flag flown during the War of 1812, with 15 stripes and 15 stars. Very few examples of a 15-stripe flag remain. The flag that flew over Ft. McHenry, the original “Star-spangled Banner,” is one. This replica flies in the peace garden in Oswego, New York.
The “Star-spangled Banner” that flew over Ft. McHenry, near Baltimore, which inspired Francis Scott Key to write the poem which was put to music to form our national anthem, had 15 stripes. President James Monroe signed a law in 1818 that specified 13 stripes, with a new star to be added on July 4 of any year after a new state was added, a practice which has held through our current 50-star, 13-stripe flag.
Tennessee was the 16th state. I have been unable to clarify what happened with the number of stripes between Tennessee’s admission to the union on June 1, 1796, and the law passed in the Monroe administration in 1818. Does anyone know? Got links?
More (added after August 2013):
Spread the word; friends don't allow friends to repeat history.
20 Comments | Flag etiquette, History, Patriotism | Tagged: flag, History, Patriotism | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
January 12, 2008
There’s a fun blog, Tugster: A Waterblog, that usually features photos of tugs that ply the waters around New York City. Good to wonderful photos; and I’ve been hoping for a reason to mention the blog.
Here’s one: What do you see peeking through the trees and wires?
It’s the masts of the barque Peking, a sailing ship built for a German shipping company in 1911 — the same year the Titanic was built. This was a freight hauler, used originally to take nitrates mined in South America to Europe.
After a relatively long sailing career, the ship has been retired as a museum ship at the South Street Seaport Museum (a great place to visit when you get to New York). It’s in dry dock right now, which is where these photos were taken.
Tugster points to a lot of details, with several photos. It’s interesting to see a ship of the vintage of the Titanic, out of water. It’s interesting to see one of the faster sailing ships, especially one built for use in the 20th century. You can see how the technology of ships and shipbuilding allowed for faster sail vessels; this is part of the story of how technologies get eclipsed, too — when sailing could no longer keep up with steam, advances in sailing ships slowed to a stop.
This was one of the last, fast sailing vessels built — one of a chain of “flying P-liners.”
Get on over to Tugster and see what you can do with the photos, and the history.
4-masted barque Peking under sail, in the River Thames, unknown year. The ship was originally named Arethusa. Wikimedia photo
Spread the word; friends don't allow friends to repeat history.
5 Comments | Capturing history, Geography - Economic, History, Museums, Technology, Transportation, Travel, World War I | Tagged: Barque Peking, Economics, foreign trade, History, sailing ships, South Street Seaport Museum, Technology, Tugster | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
January 12, 2008
. . . would still be a Texas town.
But Texas towns have some of the best names of towns in the U.S. Plus, there are a lot of Texas towns, plus 254 Texas counties.
Freckles Cassie at Political Teen Tidbits has a great list:
Need to be cheered up?
Happy, Texas 79042
Pep, Texas 79353
Smiley, Texas 78159
Paradise, Texas 76073
Rainbow, Texas 76077
Sweet Home, Texas 77987
Comfort, Texas 78013
Friendship, Texas 76530
Go see the entire list — and maybe add a few of your favorites in the comments. An ambitious geography teacher could make a couple of great exercises out of those lists. “What’s the shortest distance one would have to drive to visit Paris, Italy, Athens and Santa Fe? How many could you visit in the shortest time?”
See updated version, here, with more links.
Spread the word; friends don't allow friends to repeat history.
4 Comments | Geography - Political, History, Maps, Place Names, Texas, Travel | Tagged: geography, History, Maps, Place Names, Texas, Travel | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
January 12, 2008
The East Aurora (New York) Advertiser brings news that Millard Fillmore has offered himself as a candidate for president in 2008.
No flip-flops — as he points out, he has not changed any position in more than 100 years.
Perhaps surprisingly, he has remarkably progressive views on issues of 2008.
Second Reporter:
Mr. President, there’s nothing in your record on your views on same sex marriage. Will you comment?
Fillmore:
I was married twice, both times to a person of the same sex… a female…. and it seemed appropriate to me….
Millard Fillmore: A man unconcerned about his place in history. Millard Fillmore: The only candidate to have reduced the cost of postage.
He might have a chance.
Spread the word; friends don't allow friends to repeat history.
Leave a Comment » | Campaigns, History, Humor, Millard Fillmore | Tagged: History, Humor, Millard Fillmore | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
January 12, 2008
110 years was enough.
The Texas State Historical Association will move to Denton, Texas, and a new association with the powerful history department at the University of North Texas, after 110 years in Austin in a home on the campus of the University of Texas.
Holly K. Hacker wrote the details for a story in The Dallas Morning News for January 12, 2008:
The association’s president said UNT is a logical choice. Among its selling points, UNT has the state’s biggest program in Texas history and a university press that publishes many books on Texas subjects. The association also has four fellows and a former president from UNT.
“We felt that UNT not only made the best offer in terms of what it could give us, but it was also the best fit on a day-in, day-out basis,” said Frank de la Teja, president of the association.
The group publishes a scholarly journal called Southwestern Historical Quarterly. And anyone who’s ever Googled the Battle of the Alamo, Juneteenth or some other Texas subject is probably familiar with the association’s Handbook of Texas Online, a comprehensive encyclopedia that averages 4 million page views a month.
Details are still being worked out, but UNT hopes the association will move to campus in the fall, said Michael Monticino, associate dean of UNT’s College of Arts and Sciences. He said the university is poised to pay for renovations, worth about half a million dollars, and to contribute about $200,000 a year for other expenses.
The move may be good news for history teachers closer to Denton, including those in Dallas, Fort Worth, Arlington, Irving, Tyler and Abilene. Chiefly the move indicates how Texas’s higher education quality has spread out well beyond Austin and College Station, homes of the first branches of the University of Texas and Texas A&M University, respectively.
Full story below the fold (as insurance against the whims of electronic archivists at the Dallas Morning News).
TSHA’s annual meeting will be in Corpus Christi, March 5 through 8, 2008. Educators can register for as little as $35.00.
Read the rest of this entry »
Spread the word; friends don't allow friends to repeat history.
1 Comment | Education, Higher education, History, Texas, Texas history | Tagged: CEUs, Continuing Education Credits, Education, History, Texas | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
January 12, 2008
As long as we’re in Mali anyway, why not arrive a couple of days early for this other music festival? Michael Kessler writes about the Festival du Chameau in the Sydney Morning Herald, “The sound of the desert blues”:
A week ago, when the doctor was jabbing me with yellow fever, polio and hepatitis shots and supplying malaria tablets, I’d tried imagining what a camel festival would look like. The Festival du Chameau [in its third year in 2008] is the brainchild of Tinariwen, the international darlings of world music – a group of Touareg nomadic musicians, purveyors of the desert blues, whose political past combined with their hypnotic electric guitars make them local heroes in this, the Adrar des Iforas region of Mali.
Toronto Globe and Mail reporter Stephanie Nolen accompanied a group of Inuit musicians to Mali, documented in a blog for the newspaper, Trail to Timbuktu; from her reports, we know the festival is underway, music is on the dunes:
There’s no down-in-front with a camel, really.
The 8th Festival in the Desert began a couple of hours ago, with several thousand people sitting and standing in the cool, white sand at the edge of the oasis at Essekane. The sun set just as the event kicked off, silhouetting robed men, veiled women and camels on all the surrounding ridges. On the small, raised stage there were speeches by notables including the local governor and Mali’s Minister of Culture.
Then the music began, with the opening provided by Tamnana, a traditional ensemble of men and women from Essekane who drum, chant, clap and ululate. They’re a big hit with the locals, and it turns out that demonstrations of musical appreciation hereabouts take the form of camel tricks. When the spirit moves them, nomads on camelback suddenly charge down from the dunes to the front of the stage, where they coax their camels down to “walk” on their front knees – a much-admired feat. Or they dismount and launch sudden sword fights with phantom opponents, before swinging back up and charging the camel back and forth in front of the stage a few times. It’s the Tuareg version of the mosh pit, and it’s magical to watch, but it does tend to blot out the action on the stage.
Inuit performers from Canada, in the sands at the Essakane Festival, Mali, 2008; photo by Stephanie Nolen, Toronto Globe and Mail.
News still travels slowly out of Mali’s desert, though. Most of the news about the Mali Festival in the Desert comes in the form of festival veterans spreading the music, in other, far-flung venuues.
Influences of the Essakane Festival of the Desert reach Salina, Kansas, where the Salina Journal talks about the music of Toubab Crewe, a group of North Caronlians who have performed at the big Mali festival in the past.
Oregon feels it, too: MacArthur Foundation grant recipient Corey Harris, a veteran bluesman whose work was featured in the PBS series on the blues, especially his work in Mali with the late Ali Farka Toure, performs at the Rogue Valley Blues Festival in Ashland, Oregon, on January 18 (that’s the Southern Oregon Mail Tribune, not Mali Tribune).
Mali, and Africa, have much more than just these few festivals. Why should we concern ourselves with the Essakane festival at all? Africa. PopMatters carries a column by journalist Mark Reynolds, reviewing events and arts in Africa in 2007, with a look to 2008. It’s a survey of events and publications, but it’s a good backgrounder for a high school student in Africa concerns, an article that should suggest connections to be made in geography, history, government and economics courses.
Thanks to Ann at Peoples Geography for the correction — Sydney Morning Herald.
Spread the word; friends don't allow friends to repeat history.
1 Comment | Africa, Geography - Physical, Geography - Political, History, Lesson plans, Music, World history | Tagged: Africa, Entertainment, geography, Mali Essakane, Music, Travel | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
January 8, 2008
Is this the information which confirms Mencken’s writing was really a hoax? Can we confirm there was a bathtub in the White House before Millard Fillmore got there?
America’s premier building historian, William Seale, lists a timeline at the White House Historical Association that shows showers and baths installed in the White House about 15 years before Millard Fillmore could have the chance:
Caption from Smithsonian: An 1830s hand pump shower similar to those once used in the White House bathing room. Smithsonian Institution
Running water was introduced into the White House in 1833. Initially its purpose was to supply the house with drinking water and to fill reservoirs for protection against fire. An engineer named Robert Leckie built the system of reservoirs, pumps, and pipes that supplied the White House, and the Treasury, State, War, and Navy buildings with water. Very soon, a “bathing room” was established in the east wing to take advantage of the
fine water supply. The room featured a cold bath, a shower, and a hot bath heated by coal fires under large copper boilers.
Source: William Seale, The President’s House, 199-200. (Photo: Hand pump shower, similar to those installed in the 1830s White House; from the Smithsonian’s collection)
In 1833, Andrew Jackson started his second term. Regardless when in 1833 that plumbing work was done, Jackson was the president.
Seale also has Franklin Pierce improving the plumbing upstairs, in the family quarters (which may be the source of Scholastic’s claim that Pierce put the first tub in):
The 1850s saw many improvements and expansions to the mansion’s existing conveniences. By this time many Americans who had gaslight wondered how they had ever lived without it. President Zachary Taylor ordered an enlargement of the gas system into the White House’s offices, family quarters, and basement. Millard Fillmore determined that the house should be comfortable in any season and had the heating system improved. The White House of Franklin Pierce came to represent the best domestic technology of its time (1853). The heating plant was modified again with the addition of a hot-water furnace that was more efficient and healthful because the air was warmed directly by coils rather than “cooked” from outside the air chamber. Pierce also made significant improvements to the plumbing and toilet facilities, including the installation of a bathroom on the second floor with the first permanent bathing facilities. The new bathroom was luxurious in having both hot and cold water piped in. Before 1853 bathing on the second floor required portable bathtubs, and kettles of hot water had to be hauled up from the existing east wing bathing room.
Source: William Seale, The President’s House, 283, 291, 315-16; and William Seale, The White House: The History of an American Idea, 90.
And wouldn’t you know it: Seale is a native of Beaumont, Texas. It takes a Texan to get the details to dispel these hoaxes.
Spread the word; friends don't allow friends to repeat history.
2 Comments | H. L. Mencken, History, Hoaxes, Humor, Millard Fillmore, Presidents, White House | Tagged: bathtub, H. L. Mencken, History, hoax, Humor, Millard Fillmore, White House, White House Historical Association, William Seale | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
January 8, 2008
Tired of odd speakers trying to tell you about how boys learn differently from girls because of the size of the Crockus in their brain?
How about serious material to beef up your teaching: Vietnam, the Russian Revolution, Mexicans in U.S. history, Native Americans in the 20th century, use of the internet in history classes — three sessions, each with three classes to choose from.
The history department at Southern Methodist University in Dallas offers solid education in serious history issues for teachers in colleges and secondary schools. The Stanton Sharp Teaching Symposium on Saturday, February 9 offers great material in nine different areas. Several of these topics seem to be pulled from the Texas Education Agency’s list of subjects that students need to do better on, for the Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills (TAKS).
Invitation below the fold. The $15 fee includes lunch; you may earn up to 7 hours of Continuing Education Units (CEU) credits.
(I plan to be there, and if you’re really interested in the Crockus and its scholars, I happen to have a photo of the elusive Crosley Shelvador on my cell phone — he appeared to have used one of those spray-on tanning solutions, but is otherwise real, as the photos show.)
Read the rest of this entry »
Spread the word; friends don't allow friends to repeat history.
6 Comments | 1914-1918, Africa, America's founding, Ancient history, Cold War, Communism, History, Joseph Stalin, Lesson plans, Lessons of Vietnam, Richard M. Nixon, Russian Revolution, Teaching, Technology in the classroom, Vietnam, World history | Tagged: continuing education, Education, History, Native Americans, Russian Revolution, Teachers, Vietnam | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
January 7, 2008
Often I ponder that there are few, if any, worthy models of bosses in popular media, especially in television. This realization struck me several years ago when a friend and I were working on a book on leadership (never published). Models of action are very powerful things. When people see other people doing things, people copy the behaviors, even unconsciously — ask any parent whose kid suddenly informed the in-laws or PTA of the parent’s ability to cuss in a fashion that would embarrass most sailors.
So, the models of what we see as bosses probably affect what we actually get in the workplace. This should trouble you: There are not a lot of good models of good bosses in any medium.
In the comic strips, for example, we have Dagwood Bumstead and his boss Mr. Dithers, who wars with his wife, who seems to be an authoritarian despot who physically abuses his workers. Or in more modern strips, we have Dilbert’s pointy-haired boss, who is an incompetent at all human functions, and most management functions as well. Don’t get me going on Beetle Bailey with incompetents all the way up the line from Sgt. Snorkle.
On television we’ve had incompetents and yellers for years. Phil Silvers played Sgt. Bilko. In every incarnation of Lucille Ball’s programs, a boob boss was required — from Ricky Ricardo’s Cuban temper flareups through Gale McGee’s bosses whose manifold, manifest foibles made them great comic foils. Homer Simpson’s ultimate boss, Mr. Burns, anyone?
Generally, even where someone plays a pretty good boss — Crockett’s and Tubbs’ boss on the old Miami Vice, or the lab heads in any of the current CSI series — there is another boss above them who has some massive failing, or a vendetta against the good team.
Exceptions are rare. Some of the Star Treks did better than others. Jean-Luc Picard in Star Trek: Next Generation, was ideal as boss in many ways. It was particularly interesting to watch him give his “No. 1,” Riker, first choice in missions on foreign planets. The character Picard had a particular way of showing confidence in subordinates, in subtly demanding the best from them. He’d ask for opinions or ideas on what to do next; when someone came up with a workable idea, or even only the best idea of an apparently unworkable lot, Picard would look them in the eye and delegate to the team the authority to make it happen: “Make it so,” he’d say.
If only we could make it so.
Then there was The West Wing. I think it premiered when I was teaching at night. For whatever reason, I didn’t see a single episode until reruns shortly before the second season. I caught new episodes almost never. Read the rest of this entry »
Spread the word; friends don't allow friends to repeat history.
5 Comments | Business, Business Ethics, Campaigns, Ethics, History, Leadership, Politics, Presidents, Religion | Tagged: 2008 campaign, Media, Politics, Religion, The West Wing | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
January 7, 2008
January 7, 2008, is the 208th anniversary of Millard Fillmore’s birth.
More obscure facts about our 13th president:
Promoter of Minnesota’s development: According to a letter in the Minneapolis Star-Tribune on January 3, Minnesota owes a debt to Fillmore, for his public relations gimmick on the Mississippi River with a steamboat:
The Minnesota Territory was promoted as a wonderfully healthy, resource-rich and abundantly diverse landscape by the Grand Excursion of 1854, the riverboat excursion up the Mississippi River made by President Millard Fillmore and scores of journalists from the East. It was a resounding success; in the succeeding years thousands of settlers came to the territory to seek a new life. On May 11, 1858, we became the 32nd state.
Health care: Two hospitals in the Buffalo, New York, area bear Millard Fillmore’s name, Millard Fillmore Gates Circle Hospital and Millard Fillmore Suburban Hospital. A planning process by the state of New York threatens to close the facility at Gates Circle, in a drive to eliminate overlapping services to save money.
No pets: Millard Fillmore is one of only three presidents to have no pets while in the White House. Franklin Pierce and Chester Alan Arthur are the other two. The no-pets group are mired in obscurity and mediocrity, but I’ll make no post hoc ergo propter hoc analysis.
Share the mirth: Millard Fillmore shares his birthday with cartoonist Charles Addams, and with newswoman Katie Couric.
Coincidence? Some think not: Millard Fillmore and William Howard Taft both died on March 8, but in different years. Is that too great a coincidence? Heck, Thomas Jefferson and John Adams both died on the same day, in the same year — and that day was July 4, 1826, the 50th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence. That is one of the top ten best pieces of evidence of intelligent design in the universe, and still not enough to get intelligent design into biology classes. Random or not, Millard Fillmore’s reputation is neither helped nor hurt by the fact.
Forgettable lines: Millard Fillmore has nothing quoted in the Yale Book of Quotations.
How will you commemorate Millard Fillmore today?
Spread the word; friends don't allow friends to repeat history.
5 Comments | History, Humor, Millard Fillmore | Tagged: Humor, Millard Fillmore, Presidents | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
January 6, 2008
Oy.
U.S. Rep. Randy Forbes, R-Virginia, wants a resolution designating a week in May as “American Religious History Week.”
Alas, alack, and every other epithet you can think of, Forbes’ resolution, H. Res. 888, is loaded to the gills with historical error. Adding hypocrisy to error, Forbes plagiarized a raft of “citations” in a lengthy set of footnotes in an oleaginous “footnoted” version of the resolution. It’s clear that Forbes did not read the sources of the footnotes, and it appears that he didn’t bother to read the footnotes either. The footnotes claim religious language in the case of Vidal v. Girard’s Executors, 43 U. S. 127, 198 (1844), for example, but fail to note that the language mentioned was repudiated by the Supreme Court in their upholding of the will of atheist patriot Stephen Girard, turning back arguments that the U.S. is a Christian nation with Christianity in its common law. Forbes is a member of the Judiciary Committee, and a graduate of the University of Virginia’s law school. Hypothetically, he should know better.
The resolution is so wrong on history, it has the effect of repudiating the No Child Left Behind Act’s call for standards in education, in the worst possible way.
Chris Rodda, the author and indefatigable correcter of such historical error, has a long post at Daily Kos detailing the problems.
Baffled at the astounding lack of scholarship in the resolution, I want to know:
- Does Rep. Forbes’ mother know he turns in work like this?
- What is the view of any serious Virginia history association?
- Will any Virginia university history department endorse the resolution as accurate? Would such a paper not violate ethical standards for a student at Randolph-Macon College (Forbes’s alma mater)?
- What is the view of the American Historical Association?
- What does the Department of Education say about it? Nothing? How about the mavens at the National Assessment of Educational Progress? Is there any way this resolution could fail to damage the history attainment of the entire nation?
- Is Forbes bucking to get on Leno’s “Jaywalking” segment, in the playoffs?
- Why does Rep. Forbes hate America’s history teachers so?
- Wasn’t there any staffer with enough sense to stop Rep. Forbes from embarrassing himself with this stuff?
- Has the House historian signed off on the historical accuracy of the resolution’s “whereas” clauses?
- Has Rep. Forbes ever looked at the 23 bas relief portrayals of lawmakers around the House Chamber and wondered who they were, why they were there, and why his resolution insults most of them? (He cites the sculptures in one of the whereas clauses — one might wonder if he ever looks up.)
Tip of the old scrub brush to Ed Brayton at Dispatches from the Culture Wars.
Read the rest of this entry »
Spread the word; friends don't allow friends to repeat history.
10 Comments | Bogus history, History, Politics, Rampant stupidity, Religion, U.S. House of Representatives, Voodoo history | Tagged: History, Plagiarism, Politics, Religion, Voodoo history | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
January 5, 2008
Gee, here’s one this blog really should be celebrating: December 28 was the 90th anniversary of the Mencken Fillmore Bathtub Hoax column.
According to the Associated Press, this the historic highlight for December 28:
On Dec. 28, 1917, the New York Evening Mail published “A Neglected Anniversary,” a facetious essay by H.L. Mencken supposedly recounting the history of bathtubs in America. (For example, Mencken “claimed” the first American bathtub made its debut in the Cincinnati home of grain dealer Adam Thompson on Dec. 20, 1842, and that the first White House bathtub was installed in 1851 at the order of President Millard Fillmore.)
We know Mencken was only foolin’.
Spread the word; friends don't allow friends to repeat history.
3 Comments | H. L. Mencken, History, Hoaxes, Millard Fillmore | Tagged: H. L. Mencken, History, Hoaxes, Millard Fillmore | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
January 4, 2008
Monday, January 7, is the 208th anniversary of the birth of Millard Fillmore.
- Campaign poster from the 1856 presidential election, when Fillmore ran on the American Party ticket. The American Party is better known as the Know-Nothing Party. Library of Congress image. Fillmore failed to win the nomination of the Whig Party in 1852; he lost in 1856 with the Know-Nothings, too.
The rumor is inaccurate that there will be a big celebration in the organizing offices of the George W. Bush Presidential Library, same as they also celebrate the births of James Buchanan, Franklin Pierce, and Warren G. Harding — those who bar the way of Bush’s being acclaimed as the worst president in U.S. history.
Watch a C-SPAN video on the Millard Fillmore map collection at the Library of Congress. Fillmore was a surveyor (a profession he shared with Washington, Jefferson and Lincoln, among others), and when he got the money, he collected maps. It’s a nice collection which I knew nothing about when I was in Washington, and which I would love to see. (I found the video via the American Presidents website.)
Fillmore was the last Whig Party president. So far as I can tell, the Whig Party has no plans to celebrate in any fashion. Peter Brimelow, Vox Day and Cleon Skousen were all unavailable for comment.
Fillmore Days in Cayuga, New York, are the last week in June.
The University of Buffalo organizes a gravesite commemoration, set for January 7, 2008, 10:00 a.m. Eastern Time at Buffalo’s Forest Lawn Cemetery, where Fillmore is interred. Fillmore founded the University of Buffalo and was its first chancellor. If you plan to attend, you should register for the event.
Near Buffalo, in East Aurora, the annual dinner commemoratng Fillmore’s birthday will be held Thursday night:
This year’s dinner at The Roycroft Inn will be held on Jan. 10 at 6 p.m., missing Fillmore’s 208th birthday (Jan. 7) by just a few days. The meal is said to be inspired by Fillmore’s early days in East Aurora, and features a “Know-Nothing stew.” Guests can also enjoy a birthday cake provided by Tops. The Greater East Aurora Chamber of Commerce hosts the event, which is sponsored this year by OPCS Federal Credit Union. Seating at the dinner is limited, and reservations are available by calling the [East Aurora] Chamber [of Commerce] at [716?] 652-8444.
How will you celebrate Fillmore’s birthday?
Should we also note March 8, the day that both Fillmore and William Howard Taft died? Forgotten Presidents Day? Bathtub Presidents Day?
Read the rest of this entry »
Spread the word; friends don't allow friends to repeat history.
7 Comments | History, History video sources, Humor, Millard Fillmore, Politics, Presidents | Tagged: History, Humor, Millard Fillmore, Politics, Presidents | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
December 31, 2007
A note today from the Legal Information Institute (LII) at Cornell University’s Law Library notes that a big death penalty case is set for argument on Monday, January 7.
The issue in Baze v. Rees is whether lethal injection is cruel and unusual punishment, and therefore prohibited under the 8th Amendment to the Constitution. Plaintiffs Thomas Baze and Thomas K. Bowling argue that there is an impermissible chance of pain from the execution process.
Two lower courts ruled against the plaintiffs. In a rather surprise move, the Supreme Court granted a writ of certiorari on September 25 to hear the case, which some interpret as the Court’s willingness to review the cruel and unusual argument in the light of a majority of the states now refusing to use the death penalty, while others think it means the more conservative Roberts Court is willing to quash death penalty appeals with a ruling that injection is not cruel and unusual.
This highlights the 8th Amendment. Discussion of this topic may help students cement their knowledge of the amendment and Bill of Rights. News on this case generally highlights court procedures, procedures, legal and constitutional principles that students in government classes need to understand.
News on the arguments in this case should go into teacher scrapbooks for later classroom exercises. Teachers may want to note that the decision will come down before the Court adjourns in June, but it may come down before the end of the school year. Teachers may want to have students review information about the case and make predictions, which predictions can be checked with the decision issues.
Below the fold I copy LII’s introduction to the case in their Oral Argument Previews, with the links to the full discussion, which you may use in your classes.
LII operates off of contributions. I usually give $10 or so when I think of it — these resources are provided free. You should be using at least $10 worth of stuff in your classrooms — look for the donation link, and feel free to use it in the support of excellent legal library materials provided free of cost to teachers and students.
Read the rest of this entry »
Spread the word; friends don't allow friends to repeat history.
7 Comments | Bill of Rights, History, Jurisprudence, Justice, Law, Lesson plans, Politics, U.S. Constitution, U.S. Supreme Court | Tagged: Bill of Rights, death penalty, History, Law, Politics, Supreme Court | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
Millard Fillmore's Bathtub 