Did I need to remind you to fly your flag today?
U.S. flag at George Washington's home, Mt. Vernon, cupola on the house in the background
You’re flying your flag, right?
November 24, 2011
2 Comments | 
Flag etiquette, Fly your flag today, History, Patriotism, Thanksgiving | Tagged: Flag Code, Flag etiquette, Fly your flag today, History, Patritotism, Thanksgiving, U.S. Flag | 
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Posted by Ed Darrell
Thomas Nast’s “Uncle Sam’s Thanksgiving”
November 24, 2011November 1869, in the first year of the Grant administration — and Nast put aside his own prejudices enough to invite the Irish guy to dinner, along with many others.
(Click for a larger image — it’s well worth it.)
Thomas Nast's "Uncle Sam's Thanksgiving," appearing in Harper's Weekly, November 20, 1869 - Ohio State University's cartoon collection
As described at the Ohio State site:
“Uncle Sam’s Thanksgiving Dinner” marks the highpoint of Nast’s Reconstruction-era idealism. By November 1869 the Fourteenth Amendment, which secures equal rights and citizenship to all Americans, was ratified. Congress had sent the Fifteenth Amendment, which forbade racial discrimination in voting rights, to the states and its ratification appeared certain. Although the Republican Party had absorbed a strong nativist element in the 1850s, its commitment to equality seemed to overshadow lingering nativism, a policy of protecting the interests of indigenous residents against immigrants. Two national symbols, Uncle Sam and Columbia, host all the peoples of the world who have been attracted to the United States by its promise of self-government and democracy. Germans, African Americans, Chinese, Native Americans, Germans, French, Spaniards: “Come one, come all,” Nast cheers at the lower left corner.
One of my Chinese students identified the Oriental woman as Japanese, saying it was “obvious.” The figure at the farthest right is a slightly cleaned-up version of the near-ape portrayal Nast typically gave Irishmen.
If Nast could put aside his biases to celebrate the potential of unbiased immigration to the U.S. and the society that emerges, maybe we can, too.
Hope your day is good; hope you have good company and good cheer, turkey or not. Happy Thanksgiving.
1 Comment | Cartoons, History, Holidays, Immigration, Political cartoons, Reconstruction, Thanksgiving, Thomas Nast, Uncle Sam | Tagged: 1869, History, Immigration, Political cartoons, Thanksgiving, Thomas Nast, Uncle Sam | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
6th Floor Museum, Dallas — go see it
November 23, 2011The 6th Floor Museum in Dallas presents in-depth studies of the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, on November 22, 1963.
There’s a lot more to such a study than you might think. It’s a relatively quick tour — you can view the museum’s displays and films in about two hours, comfortably, stopping to read exhibit cards and really analyze objects on display. A couple of the films present a great deal of history quickly and well (Walter Cronkite narrates one).
One cannot avoid a great deal of history of the Civil Rights Movement, the Cuban Missile Crisis and the Cold War, and the start of the Vietnam conflict. Kennedy’s administration covered only three years, but a very active and important three years in the 20th century.
Increasingly the 6th Floor Museum is a stop for researchers and scholars. The recent addition of a good reading room for scholars is a great asset.
Curator Gary Mack offers a quick introduction in this video:
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Plan to spend three or four hours. You’ll find the place very interesting. After the museum, most likely you’ll want to spend some time exploring Dealey Plaza, the road where Kennedy’s car was when he was shot, and the famous grassy knoll. It’s a part of downtown that is almost always filled with people in daylight in all but the absolute worst weather. (Check out the EarthCam at Dealey Plaza.)
Old Red, the old Dallas County Courthouse, with its own museum, is just a half block away.
1 Comment | Dallas, History, History museums, JFK assassination, John F. Kennedy, Presidents | Tagged: 6th Floor Museum, Assassination, Dallas, History, Museums, President John F. Kennedy | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
Hope for history to repeat itself in 2012 – Berryman cartoon on Congress
November 21, 2011Caption from the National Archives, where this cartoon resides:
Clifford Berryman cartoon from 1912, "Congress will come to order!" National Archives
“Congress Will Come To Order!”
by Clifford K. Berryman
Washington Evening Star, December 2, 1912
From the US Senate Collection, Center for Legislative ArchivesThe ultimate prize of a congressional election is control over the two houses of Congress: the U.S. House of Representatives and the U.S. Senate. This cartoon shows Congress following the pivotal 1912 elections when the Democrats swept into power and captured majorities both houses.
Some might hope that this history repeats.
2 Comments | Cartoons, Elections, History, History images, Political cartoons | Tagged: 1912, Clifford Berryman, Congress, Elections, History images, Naitonal Archives, Political cartoons, Washington Star | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
Gettysburg Address – again, “No casino, please”
November 21, 2011Yet another version of readings of the Gettysburg Address — this time by actors, historians, and a winner of the Medal of Honor, in a campaign to prevent the construction of a casino next door to the battlefield monuments:
1 Comment | 1861-1865, Abraham Lincoln, Civil War, Famous Battles, Famous quotes, History | Tagged: 1861-1865, Abraham Lincoln, Civil War, famous speeches, Gettysburg, History | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
Springfield, Illinois area residents recite Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address
November 20, 2011A short feature put together by the Springfield State Journal-Register:
Leave a Comment » | 1861-1865, Abraham Lincoln, Civil War, Famous quotes, Gettysburg, History | Tagged: 1861-1865, Abraham Lincoln, Civil War, Gettysburg Address, History, Springfield State Journal-Register | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
Documentary film worth seeing: “The Other ‘F’ Word” at the Texas Theatre
November 20, 2011Here’s the trailer:
Kathryn and I caught it last night at the renovated, historic Texas Theatre on Jefferson Avenue in Oak Cliff (formerly an independent town, now a sprawling neighborhood of Dallas). The audience enthusiasm didn’t overpower the movie — the audience was much smaller than the film deserves.
It’s showing again this afternoon and Wednesday night at the Texas.
Advantages of seeing this at the Texas:
- Parking is easy and free after 4:00 p.m. on Jefferson Avenue.
- The bar has Mothership beer on tap (and a variety of other good libations).
- Popcorn is cheaper than at most megaplexes, plus it doesn’t taste as if made from petroleum by-product (which is not to say it is healthy, but that it may be less unhealthy).
- History point 1: This is a near-Art Deco theatre built originally by Howard Hughes.
- History point 2: This is the theatre in which Lee Harvey Oswald was captured in his flight from the scene of the assassination of President John F. Kennedy.
- It’s a great film.
- It’s a great theatre to view great films in.
Punk never made a great impression on me. But at length, years later, I think I understand part of the angst and noise of the punkers, thanks to this film. The description at the YouTube trailer:
THE OTHER F WORD
directed by Andrea Blaugrund Nevins
produced by Cristan Reilly and Andrea Blaugrund NevinsIN THEATERS NOVEMBER 2ND, 2011
http://www.theotherfwordmovie.com/This revealing and touching film asks what happens when a generation’s ultimate anti-authoritarians — punk rockers — become society’s ultimate authorities — dads. With a large chorus of punk rock’s leading men – Blink-182’s Mark Hoppus, Red Hot Chili Peppers’ Flea, Rise Against’s Tim McIlrath – THE OTHER F WORD follows Jim Lindberg, a 20-year veteran of the skate punk band Pennywise, on his hysterical and moving journey from belting his band’s anthem “F–k Authority,” to embracing his ultimately authoritarian role in mid-life: fatherhood.
Other dads featured in the film include skater Tony Hawk, Art Alexakis (Everclear), Mark Mothersbaugh (Devo), Tony Adolescent (The Adolescents), Fat Mike (NOFX), Lars Frederiksen (Rancid), and many others.
These are Tea Partiers with a cause and a brain, and a sense of social responsibility. Lindberg said, near the end of the movie:
That’s what I want to hold on to, is that feeling that we can make a change out there. Maybe the way we change the world is by raising better kids.
Readers of this blog may note the great irony in one of the chief profiles of the film being of Ron Reyes, a member of early West Coast punk band Black Flag, who quit the band in the middle of a set to protest the violence that afflicted the Los Angeles punk scene, and moved to Vancouver, British Columbia, to raise his kids well.
Heck, it’s probably a great film to see even if you can’t see it at the Texas.
(You know, I’ve got some shots of our tour of the Texas Theatre in August . . . hmm . . . where are those pictures? Other computer?)
Leave a Comment » | Dallas, Historic Buildings, History, Movies, Music, Parents, Texas, Texas history, Video and film | Tagged: Dallas, Documentary Film, Historic Buildings, History, Music, Parenting, Punk Rock, Texas Theatre, The Other F Word | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
November 20, 1942: Alaska Highway opened
November 20, 2011
Widening the Alcan Highway, 1942 - Wikipedia image from Library of Congress
Thinking of Alaska today — a good day to ponder the Last Frontier.
Alaskan Frontier? It’s been 52 years since Alaska became a state. My students’ grandparents may remember the time, but the students don’t. Alaska has not even been in the news much in the lifetimes of current high school students. Construction on the Alaska Pipeline finished in 1977; the Exxon-Valdez Disaster rocked us in March 1989. Juniors in a Texas U.S. history class were born circa 1994. Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin’s nomination for vice president in 2008 prompted a bit of interest in people in Alaska, but not much more, for our students. The earlier “bridge to nowhere” issue was just one more Washington, D.C. scandal to them. Alaska holds no thrall over most U.S. high school students today.
In autumn, especially in Texas where winters mildly bluster most of the time, my thoughts turn to colder climes and earlier times. I think of Alaska “back then.”
Much to study, much to know. Alaska winds through American history in odd, mostly ignored ways — Alaska was the gateway to the Americas for those migrants who came in through Beringia in the Upper Paleolithic period, 12,000 years and longer ago; for nearly 150 years Alaska was the Russian Czar’s colonial presence in America, based partly on the exploration of the area by Vitus Bering, after whom both the Bering Sea and Bering Strait take their names (but just try to find that in the Texas text books); the U.S.-Russian treaty of 1824 rarely gets a mention anywhere, though it is the source of the line drawn at 54° 40′ North latitude which gave specificity to the jingo-ist slogan, “Fifty-four forty or fight!” The administration of President James K. Polk resolved that crisis — with Britain — at 49° North, but Polk’s popularity maintained. Alaska became Seward’s Folly in 1867 when Secretary of State William H. Seward negotiated the purchase of Alaska from Russia, for about $7 million. This is one more indication of the power and genius in Abraham Lincoln’s cabinet, that such deals could occur even two years after Lincoln’s death (see the story in Doris Kearns Goodwin’s book).
Then there were the gold rushes, the Klondike Gold Rush of 1896-99, and the Nome Gold Rush of 1899-1909.
In World War II Japan attacked and occupied two islands in the Aleutian chain; Alaska became a point of defense against Japanese attacks on the mainland. In partnership with Canada, the AlCan Highway took form to supply troops and troop supplies to Alaska — now called the Alaska Highway.
November 20, 1942, marked the formal opening of the road, the Alaska Highway. Even today, it’s not a paved road. Those who drive the road need to be prepared for hundreds of miles of graded, but unpaved road, with all the hazards such driving should imply but most Americans are wholly unfamiliar with.
The Alaskan Frontier
Mt. McKinley and the Alaska Range, Mt. McKinley National Park, Alaska, 1958.
Taking the Long View: Panoramic Photographs, 1851-1991(click the thumbnail image for a larger version; even larger versions available at Library of Congress American Memory site)
On November 20, 1942, U.S. Army engineers, working closely with partners in U.S. civilian agencies and Canada officially opened the Alaska Highway. This overland military supply route, originally known as the Alcan Highway, passed through the Yukon, running from the prairies of British Columbia to the Territory of Alaska. The roadway was over 1,500-miles long and connected Dawson Creek, British Columbia, to Fairbanks, Alaska. It provided Americans and Canadians on the Pacific coast new avenues for the transportation of goods, and an increased sense of security after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, and escalating hostility in the Pacific. This first phase of construction was completed in less than eight months.
In the 1780s, Russian fur traders became the first European settlers of the land across the Bering Strait from Siberia. Russian influence on native Alaskans is explored in the Library of Congress exhibition In the Beginning Was the Word: The Russian Church and Native Alaskan Cultures. The Library’s collaborative digital project with Russian libraries, Meeting Of Frontiers: Siberia, Alaska, and the American West, explores the comparative history of the Russian expansion across Siberia to the Russian Far East and the Pacific, the American expansion westward, and the meeting of the Russian-America frontier in Alaska and the Pacific Northwest.
The Russian-American Company administered Alaska from 1799 until 1867, when Secretary of State William H. Seward negotiated the purchase of Alaska for the United States. Congress established The Territory of Alaska in 1912, prompted by the significant gold discoveries of the 1880s and 1890s.
Independence Mine, Palmer Vicinity, Matanuska-Susitna Borough, Alaska
Jet Lowe, photographer, May 1981.
Built in America: Historic Buildings Survey/Historic American Engineering Record, 1933-PresentThere is a wealth of material on Alaska in American Memory collections.
- Search on Alcan in America from the Great Depression to World War II: Black-and-White Photographs from the FSA-OWI, 1935-1945 to find pictures of the construction of the road. Search on Alaska (both the bibliographic record and full text searches) in Evolution of the Conservation Movement, 1850-1920 to find legislation, reports, and other related information. This search will retrieve another gem—The Harriman Alaska Expedition: Chronicles and Souvenirs May to August 1899 with photographs by Edward S. Curtis, paintings by Louis Agassiz Fuertes, notes on the region’s indigenous trees from pioneering forester Bernhard E. Fernow, and essays by George B. Grinnell, John Burroughs, and John Muir.
- Search on Alaska in “California as I Saw It”: First Person Narratives of California’s Early Years, 1849-1900, selecting the option “Search Full Text,” to find more accounts of travelers and miners.
- Search on Alaska to retrieve historic legislation in the collection: A Century of Lawmaking for a New Nation: U.S. Congressional Documents and Debates, 1774-1875.
- View historic maps of the region by searching on Alaska in the Library’s Map Collections.
- Search the Prints & Photographs Online Catalog on Alaska to find, among other things, images of Alaskan landscapes, cultural groups and daily life from various time periods, as well as posters and extensive architectural and engineering documentation for structures throughout the state from the collection Built in America: Historic American Buildings Survey/Historic American Engineering Record, 1933-Present.
- View the panoramic photographs of Alaska in Taking the Long View: Panoramic Photographs, 1851-1991.
- Don’t miss the Today in History feature on navigator Vitus Jonassen Bering, who explored Alaska more than 250 years ago.
More sources:
- Short history of Alaskan statehood, at the University of Virginia’s site
- Primary Documents in American History, Library of Congress collection on the purchase of Alaska from Russia
- Denali National Park site; index to Alaska’s National Parks
- Alaska’s National Forests, Region 10 – Chugach and Tongass; report on climate change in Alaska from USDA
- Milepost.com, the magazine of the Alaska Highway
- The Mudflats, the go-to blog on Alaska issues
- Website of the Anchorage Daily News, the surviving paper in Alaska’s biggest city
Of the many posts on Alaska at Millard Fillmore’s Bathtub, you should see at least these:
- “Annals of global warming: Columbia Glacier, Alaska (by James Balog)”
- “Annals of global warming: Bering Strait, choke point and butterfly effect”
- “Alaska’s salmon go missing: Why?”
- “Alaska volcano blows smoke on Bobby Jindal”
- “Dallas shows off dinosaurs on ice”
- “Frozen north economics: Where supply, demand and distribution are serious problems”
- “Will Rogers and Wily Post crash in Alaska, 1935”
- “Geography hidden in plain sight”
- “Strange Maps lets things drift – ducky!” (about rubber ducks used to chart ocean currents)
- “Historic site vs. attractive nuisance: The famous Alaska bus”
- “Song for the Alaska flag”
1895 Rand McNally map of Alaska - Wikipedia image
Map of the Alaska Highway, from Milepost.com
2 Comments | History | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
November 19th, 1863: Mr. Lincoln at Gettysburg
November 19, 2011A mostly encore post about today’s anniversary of Lincoln’s speech at Gettysburg.
148 years ago today, Abraham Lincoln redefined the Declaration of Independence and the goals of the American Civil War, in a less-than-two-minute speech dedicating part of the battlefield at Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, as a cemetery and final resting place for soldiers who died in the fierce battle fought there the previous July 1 through 3.
Now in 2011, we’re in the “150th anniversary” years of the Civil War. Maybe some will look back to the time our nation worked hard to tear itself asunder, and learn lessons that might help us keep from doing that in the 21st century. Some might find inspiration, or aspiration, in Lincoln’s words at Gettysburg.
Interesting news for 2007: More photos from the Library of Congress collection may contain images of Lincoln. The photo above, detail from a much larger photo, had been thought for years to be the only image of Lincoln from that day. The lore is that photographers, taking a break from former Massachusetts Sen. Edward Everett’ s more than two-hour oration, had expected Lincoln to go on for at least an hour. His short speech caught them totally off-guard, focusing their cameras or taking a break. Lincoln finished before any photographer got a lens open to capture images.
Images of people in these photos are very small, and difficult to identify. Lincoln was not identified at all until 1952:
The plate lay unidentified in the Archives for some fifty-five years until in 1952, Josephine Cobb, Chief of the Still Pictures Branch, recognized Lincoln in the center of the detail, head bared and probably seated. To the immediate left (Lincoln’s right) is Lincoln’s bodyguard, Ward Hill Lamon, and to the far right (beyond the limits of the detail) is Governor Andrew G. Curtin of Pennsylvania. Cobb estimated that the photograph was taken about noontime, just after Lincoln arrived at the site and before Edward Everett’s arrival, and some three hours before Lincoln gave his now famous address.
On-line, the Abraham Lincoln Blog covered the discovery that two more photographic plates from the 1863 speech at Gettysburg may contain images of Lincoln in his trademark stove-pipe hat. Wander over to the story at the USA Today site, and you can see just how tiny are these detail images in relation to the photographs themselves. These images are tiny parts of photos of the crowd at Gettysburg. (The story ran in USA Today last Thursday or Friday — you may be able to find a copy of that paper buried in the returns pile at your local Kwikee Mart.) Digital technologies, and these suspected finds of Lincoln, should prompt a review of every image from Gettysburg that day.
To the complaints of students, I have required my junior U.S. history students to memorize the Gettysburg Address (though, not yet in this school year). In Irving I found a couple of students who had memorized it for an elementary teacher years earlier, and who still could recite it. Others protested, until they learned the speech. This little act of memorization appears to me to instill confidence in the students that they can master history, once they get it done.
To that end, I discovered a good, ten-minute piece on the address in Ken Burns’ “Civil War” (in Episode 5). On DVD, it’s a good piece for classroom use, short enough for a bell ringer or warm-up, detailed enough for a deeper study, and well done, including the full text of the address itself performed by Sam Waterson.
Embedded video from CNN VideoIn 1863 Edward Everett, the former Massachusetts senator and U.S. secretary of state, was regarded as the greatest orator of the time. A man of infinite grace, and a historian with some sense of events and what the nation was going through, Everett wrote to Lincoln the next day after their speeches:
“I should be glad, if I could flatter myself that I came as near the central idea of the occasion in two hours, as you did in two minutes.”
Interesting note: P. Z. Myers at Pharyngula notes that the Gettysburg Address was delivered “seven score and four years ago.” Of course, that will never happen again. I’ll wager he was the first to notice that odd juxtaposition on the opening line.
Do you have a favorite performance of this address you’d commend for internet bloggers? Let us know where to find it, in comments.
Tip of the old scrub brush to Chamblee54 for reminding us about the anniversary, today.
Resources for students and teachers:
- Today in History, November 19, from the Library of Congress’s American Memory Collections
- Ken Burns’ “Civil War” on PBS
- AmericanRhetoric.com, four audio versions of the Gettysburg Address, including Sam Waterston, and Johnny Cash
- Abraham Lincoln On-line, with extensive list of sites relating to the Gettysburg Address
- Gettysburg College, Civil War Institute and Civil War Programs (annual program commemorating the Gettysburg Address)
- Walk with Lincoln in Gettysburg, an interestingly complete stroll through the history of the battle and the creation of the cemetery, and Lincoln’s address
- Full text of Edward Everett’s two-hour oration at Gettysburg, November 19, 1863
- Sam Waterson performs the Gettysburg Address, at NPR (2003)
- An account from an eyewitness of the speech, via the Library of Congress
- Gettysburg Address exhibit at Library of Congress on-line
- “273 Words to a New America” at the Library of Congress; Millard Fillmore’s Bathtub repost of that item
- Chamblee 54 wins the best blog post title award: “Seven score and seven years ago”
- 2011 – Chamblee 54 features a nice gallery of photos from the Gettysburg area and the Gettysburg campaigns, from 1862 and 1863
10 Comments | 1861-1865, Abraham Lincoln, Civil War, Famous quotes, Gettysburg, History | Tagged: 1861-1865, Civil War, Gettysburg Address, History, Lincoln, November 19 1863 | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
Kids Bill of Rights
November 18, 2011Kids write and sing about the Bill of Rights — captured on video by the folks at EmergentOrder.com (the producers of the second Keynes/Hayek video).
How close to right are they? Can you use this in class?
Can your kids improve on this, or do something like it?
1 Comment | Bill of Rights, History, Law, U.S. Constitution | Tagged: Bill of Rights, Constitution, History, Law | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
Poet Devona Wyant, “On the difference between 1 and 99”
November 14, 2011On the difference between 1 and 99
1% is when you spend the winters at your house on Fiji.
99% is when you heat your living quarters
with a single space heater.
1% is when your prescription is automatically
in your medicine cabinet and you don’t have to think about it.
99% is when you count the remaining pills of your
prescription and know you’ll run out before your SS check comes.
1% is when you tell your driver which car to drive today.
99% is when you walk everywhere you go
if your town doesn’t have buses.
1% is when you walk into the trendiest restaurant in town
and you don’t even need a reservation.
99% is when you buy outdated meat and produce
or stand in line at a soup kitchen.
1% is when you turn on the news and nod at the politician
who says if you can’t work, you shouldn’t eat.
99% is when you don’t know what the politician said
because you couldn’t pay the electric bill.
1% doesn’t have to go to work.
99% can’t even apply for a job because you’re unemployed
and they aren’t accepting applications from the unemployed.
1% turns away from the bottom 99% because if they don’t work
or pay taxes, they have no value.
99% may be buried in a Potter’s Field before the expected life span
because
. .you were malnourished, sick, numb from cold and depression,
. .and told you have to get off the sidewalk.
One will die acclaimed.
One will die unclaimed
. .because America can’t have street beggars.
But it does have an invisible army of the poor…unarmed,
under-housed, under-fed, under-educated, out of hope, out of time,
and out of social uniform.
Just so much cannon fodder for our Class Warfare.
Devona Wyant
I subscribe to Poem-a-Day and a couple of other services that deliver poetry to my mailbox. I subscribe to a couple of list-servs that feature poets. A precious few favor me with e-mails, somehow listing me among their friends.
I got this one today, probably unpublished elsewhere. Watch for it.
[This poem above is not quoted, though it is the work of Ms. Wyant, because the quote formatting changed the formatting of the poem itself. Please be sure to attribute the poem correctly to Ms. Wyant, who holds the copyright.]
![Poet Devona Wyant, center. Caption from Lincolnton, North Carolina, Times-News: Poets Morgan DiStefano, Shane Manier and Devona Wyant and their group, Poetry Lincolnton, released their first anthology in June [2013].](https://timpanogos.blog/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/poetry_7-8-13.jpg?w=715&h=435)
Poet Devona Wyant, center. Caption from Lincolnton, North Carolina, Times-News: Poets Morgan DiStefano, Shane Manier and Devona Wyant and their group, Poetry Lincolnton, released their first anthology in June [2013].
98 Comments | History, Literature, Poetry | Tagged: History, Literature, Poetry | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
Art historians do better than conservatives on the history of DDT
November 11, 2011The art historians at least get the facts right — why can’t conservatives and erstwhile scientists like Steven Milloy get it right? This is from “The War Against Bugs,” by Steven Heller at imprint:
The War Against Bugs, by Print Magazine — a Neocide ad from European media.
With all due respect to entomologists, there is nothing aesthetically pleasing about bugs (insects by any other name). These little monsters certainly have ecological significance, but don’t tell me they are fun to have crawling around. Hence, chemical manufacturers have made it their business to find he most efficient means of ridding the pests while retaining the fine upstanding species. Too bad that anything designed to kill will doubtless have ill effects on he eco-system. In he 50s DDT was the magic bullet against such varieties as various potato beetles, coddling moth, corn earworm, cotton bollworm and tobacco budworms (eeeecccchhhh!). Then in 1972, the US Environmental Protection Agency curtailed all use of DDT on crops. The ban did not take hold in other countries until much later, and DDT was vociferously promoted through eerie calls to arms like this poster by Savignac.
Read more: The War Against Bugs — Imprint-The Online Community for Graphic Designers
For great design products, visit our online store: MyDesignShop.com
Nota bene Mr. Heller does not claim DDT use against malaria-causing mosquitoes was ever banned. He focuses instead on the promotion of DDT.
Truth in art.
Leave a Comment » | Art, DDT, History, History and art, Science | Tagged: Art, DDT, Design, History, imprint blog, Science | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
Veterans Day afternoon message from Michelle Obama
November 11, 2011I get e mail from the president’s wife:
Good afternoon,For 92 years, our nation has set aside November 11th as a day to honor those who have served in our armed forces. Originally, the day was set aside to celebrate the veterans of the First World War. Later, it was broadened to include every man and woman who has worn the uniform of the United States. And today, we continue that tradition by honoring the service and sacrifice of our troops and veterans.
But I believe that this commemoration should last much longer than just 24 hours, once a year. That’s why Jill Biden and I launched the Joining Forces initiative to honor, recognize, and support the veterans and military families who have given our nation so much. We’re issuing a call to all Americans, so that everyone asks themselves one simple question: How can I give back?
We’ve been overwhelmed by responses from across the country. Businesses are hiring more veterans. Nonprofit organizations are working with military children. And individuals all across the country have stepped up to help out in their community. How will you give back?
Our efforts with Joining Forces come on top of the many actions my husband has made on behalf of our veterans and military families.
He’s worked to send 600,000 veterans back to school on the Post-9/11 GI Bill and taken steps to help veterans translate military experience to the private sector job market. He repealed “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” — so that our troops don’t have to live a lie in order to serve the country they love. He ended the war in Iraq — our service men and women there will be home for the holidays. And just yesterday, the Senate passed two tax credits that he proposed to encourage businesses to hire America’s veterans and wounded warriors.
So inside and outside of government, we’re building a wave of support to honor and recognize our veterans and their families. We can use your help. Today, let’s all find a new way that we can get involved in our communities, not just for Veterans Day, but every day.
Visit JoiningForces.gov and sign up today.
Thank you,
Michelle Obama
A noble endeavor.
2 Comments | History | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
Fly your flag today, Veterans Day, November 11, 2011
November 11, 2011
Iwo Jima Memorial, near Washington, D.C.
Fly your flag today.
We honor all veterans on November 11 of each year. The Flag Code designates Veterans Day for flag flying, to honor veterans. (See more on the Flag Code, here.)
More, and other resources
- Even Google offered a tribute to veterans last year:
Google's Veterans Day logo
- Department of Veterans Affairs site on Veterans Day
3 Comments | History, veterans, veterans day | Tagged: Fly your flag today, History, Veterans Day | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
Veterans Day coming November 11 — remember to fly your flag
November 8, 2011Friday is Veterans Day, one of the score of “fly your flag” dates recommended in law.
Are you ready? Here’s this year’s poster, from the Veterans Administration (click to get a link for a high resolution version):
Veterans Day poster for 2011 - Veterans Administration; click image to go to VA site for high resolution version to print
Get your flag out, ready to fly. Check your local newspaper for times of your local Veterans Day Parades. Take a look at the VA’s video on the day, below, and make plans to help a vet throughout the year.
35 Comments | Flag etiquette, Fly your flag today, History, veterans, veterans day | Tagged: Flag etiquette, Fly your flag, History, November 11, veterans, Veterans Day | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
Millard Fillmore's Bathtub 