South Reading Room. Mural of Thomas Jefferson with his residence, Monticello, in the background, by Ezra Winter. Library of Congress John Adams Building, Washington, D.C.; photo by the great photographic historian Carol Highsmith
So, what are you doing to celebrate the birthday of Thomas Jefferson on April 13?
Murals by Ezra Winter also decorate the South Reading Room. The theme for these four murals is drawn from Thomas Jefferson’s writings, which are inscribed on the paintings and reflect Jefferson’s thoughts on Freedom, Labor, the Living Generation, Education, and Democratic Government. The characters and costumes depicted are those of Jefferson’s time. A portrait of Jefferson with his residence, Monticello, in the background is in the lunette above the reference desk at the north end of the room; the words in the lower left- had corner explain that THIS ROOM IS DEDICATED TO THOMAS JEFFERSON .
On the left half of the panel on the east wall, Jefferson’s view on Freedom is depicted:
THE GROUND OF LIBERTY IS TO BE GAINED BY INCHES. WE MUST BE CONTENTED TO SECURE WHAT WE CAN GET FROM TIME TO TIME AND ETERNALLY PRESS FORWARD FOR WHAT IS YET TO GET. IT TAKES TIME TO PERSUADE MEN TO DO EVEN WHAT IS FOR THEIR OWN GOOD.
Jefferson to Rev. Charles Clay, January 27, 1790
Jefferson’s views on labor [and farmers], also on the east wall, are taken from his Notes on Virginia:
THOSE WHO LABOR IN THE EARTH ARE THE CHOSEN PEOPLE OF GOD, IF HE EVER HAD A CHOSEN PEOPLE, WHOSE BREASTS HE HAS MADE THE PECULIAR DEPOSITS FOR SUBSTANTIAL AND GENUINE VIRTUE. IT IS THE FOCUS IN WHICH HE KEEPS ALIVE THAT SACRED FIRE WHICH OTHERWISE MIGHT NOT ESCAPE FROM THE EARTH.
From Notes on Virginia, 1782
On the south wall, the panel over the clock contains a quotation about the Living:
THE EARTH BELONGS ALWAYS TO THE LIVING GENERATION. THEY MAY MANAGE IT THEN AND WHAT PROCEEDS FROM IT AS THEY PLEASE DURING THEIR USUFRUCT. THEY ARE MASTERS TOO OF THEIR OWN PERSONS AND CONSEQUENTLY MAY GOVERN THEM AS THEY PLEASE.
Jefferson to James Madison, September 6, 1789
On the left half of the panel on the west wall, Jefferson’s view of Education is illustrated:
EDUCATE AND INFORM THE MASS OF THE PEOPLE. ENABLE THEM TO SEE THAT IT IS THEIR INTEREST TO PRESERVE PEACE AND ORDER, AND THEY WILL PRESERVE THEM. ENLIGHTEN THE PEOPLE GENERALLY, AND TYRANNY AND OPPRESSION OF THE BODY AND MIND WILL VANISH LIKE EVIL SPIRITS AT THE DAWN OF DAY.
Jefferson to James Madison, December 20, 1787 (first two sentences);
Jefferson to P.S. Dupont de Nemours, April 24, 18l6 (last sentence).
Actors dressed in American Revolution-era garb mark Thomas Jefferson’s 275th birthday in a ceremony at Jefferson’s home, Monticello. WVIR-TV Channel 29 image
Yes, this is an encore post. Defeating ignorance takes patience and perseverance.
Spread the word; friends don't allow friends to repeat history.
South Reading Room. Mural of Thomas Jefferson with his residence, Monticello, in the background, by Ezra Winter. Library of Congress John Adams Building, Washington, D.C.; photo by the great photographic historian Carol Highsmith
So, what are you doing to celebrate the birthday of Thomas Jefferson on April 13?
Murals by Ezra Winter also decorate the South Reading Room. The theme for these four murals is drawn from Thomas Jefferson’s writings, which are inscribed on the paintings and reflect Jefferson’s thoughts on Freedom, Labor, the Living Generation, Education, and Democratic Government. The characters and costumes depicted are those of Jefferson’s time. A portrait of Jefferson with his residence, Monticello, in the background is in the lunette above the reference desk at the north end of the room; the words in the lower left- had corner explain that THIS ROOM IS DEDICATED TO THOMAS JEFFERSON .
On the left half of the panel on the east wall, Jefferson’s view on Freedom is depicted:
THE GROUND OF LIBERTY IS TO BE GAINED BY INCHES. WE MUST BE CONTENTED TO SECURE WHAT WE CAN GET FROM TIME TO TIME AND ETERNALLY PRESS FORWARD FOR WHAT IS YET TO GET. IT TAKES TIME TO PERSUADE MEN TO DO EVEN WHAT IS FOR THEIR OWN GOOD.
Jefferson to Rev. Charles Clay, January 27, 1790
Jefferson’s views on labor, also on the east wall, are taken from his Notes on Virginia:
THOSE WHO LABOR IN THE EARTH ARE THE CHOSEN PEOPLE OF GOD, IF HE EVER HAD A CHOSEN PEOPLE, WHOSE BREASTS HE HAS MADE THE PECULIAR DEPOSITS FOR SUBSTANTIAL AND GENUINE VIRTUE. IT IS THE FOCUS IN WHICH HE KEEPS ALIVE THAT SACRED FIRE WHICH OTHERWISE MIGHT NOT ESCAPE FROM THE EARTH.
From Notes on Virginia, 1782
On the south wall, the panel over the clock contains a quotation about the Living:
THE EARTH BELONGS ALWAYS TO THE LIVING GENERATION. THEY MAY MANAGE IT THEN AND WHAT PROCEEDS FROM IT AS THEY PLEASE DURING THEIR USUFRUCT. THEY ARE MASTERS TOO OF THEIR OWN PERSONS AND CONSEQUENTLY MAY GOVERN THEM AS THEY PLEASE.
Jefferson to James Madison, September 6, 1789
On the left half of the panel on the west wall, Jefferson’s view of Education is illustrated:
EDUCATE AND INFORM THE MASS OF THE PEOPLE. ENABLE THEM TO SEE THAT IT IS THEIR INTEREST TO PRESERVE PEACE AND ORDER, AND THEY WILL PRESERVE THEM. ENLIGHTEN THE PEOPLE GENERALLY, AND TYRANNY AND OPPRESSION OF THE BODY AND MIND WILL VANISH LIKE EVIL SPIRITS AT THE DAWN OF DAY.
Jefferson to James Madison, December 20, 1787 (first two sentences);
Jefferson to P.S. Dupont de Nemours, April 24, 18l6 (last sentence).
Dallas Moon, June 7, 2014; sure it’s copyrighted, but please use it with abandon.
I got a pretty good shot at the Moon back in June, considering it’s just a 200 mm telephoto, and I was shooting handheld, without the tripod. You can’t tell from the picture, but the sky was blue. One of the issues of getting a good Moon shot concerns exposure — and this time, I got the Moon right. Sky is black, but there you go. We were walking the dog.
I’ve made a lot of photographic experiments over the summer, none of which I’ve posted. I’m also fighting computer issues with both the laptop and desktop, and downloads have been uncertain. The shot above, for example, shows up in some indices, but not in others. Can’t post it if I can’t tell WordPress what to upload, you know? Who really understands computer logic?
I’ve made two trips to Colorado to visit James and Michelle. None of the photos are up yet — and there are, actually, thousands. None of the thought rambles are up, either. I got ambushed by a fellow with “the easiest political quiz in the world” while drinking beer and listening to the Bodeans in Louisville, Colorado; there’s a photo somewhere of my pointing out the errors of the guy’s quiz, and his confessions that he’s a libertarian in GOP clothing; and then there were our visits to those temples to the failures of libertarianism, including the Florissant Fossil Beds National Monument, and the Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park and Mesa Verde N.P. Colorado libertarians live among the disasters and ruins of libertarian thought, but think and claim they are held back by the ropes their rescuers throw to them.
I hope I’ve got the streams of posts flowing again, Dear Reader. Your past patience is greatly appreciated.
Spread the word; friends don't allow friends to repeat history.
The U.S. economy appears to be coming apart at the seams. Unemployment remains at nearly ten percent, the highest level in almost 30 years; foreclosures have forced millions of Americans out of their homes; and real incomes have fallen faster and further than at any time since the Great Depression. Many of those laid off fear that the jobs they have lost — the secure, often unionized, industrial jobs that provided wealth, security and opportunity — will never return. They are probably right.
Cover of Winner-Take-All Politics, by Jacob Hacker and Paul Pierson
And yet a curious thing has happened in the midst of all this misery. The wealthiest Americans, among them presumably the very titans of global finance whose misadventures brought about the financial meltdown, got richer. And not just a little bit richer; a lot richer. In 2009, the average income of the top five percent of earners went up, while on average everyone else’s income went down. This was not an anomaly but rather a continuation of a 40-year trend of ballooning incomes at the very top and stagnant incomes in the middle and at the bottom. The share of total income going to the top one percent has increased from roughly eight percent in the 1960s to more than 20 percent today.
This what the political scientists Jacob Hacker and Paul Pierson call the “winner-take-all economy.” It is not a picture of a healthy society. Such a level of economic inequality, not seen in the United States since the eve of the Great Depression, bespeaks a political economy in which the financial rewards are increasingly concentrated among a tiny elite and whose risks are borne by an increasingly exposed and unprotected middle class. Income inequality in the United States is higher than in any other advanced democracy and by conventional measures comparable to that in countries such as Ghana, Nicaragua, and Turkmenistan.
Since the death of Radio Free Texas, banned books take on even more importance in the history of freedom and free thought, in Texas.
This is the state where, still, even the governor and the State Board of Education carry on unholy crusades against books and ideas, like evolution, racial equality, and voting rights. Moyers knows what he’s talking about.
It’s almost gone, and I haven’t even posted on it yet: Happy Banned Books Week!
We’re celebrating this week from September 30 to October 6 — you’ve got two more days.
Can you identify each of these banned books?
Courtesy of Bookman’s, a book store in Arizona.
A two-minute video produced by Bookmans, an Arizona bookstore, is helping launch a national read-out from banned and challenged books that is being held on YouTube in conjunction with Banned Books Week, the national celebration of the freedom to read (Sept. 30-Oct. 6). The video presents Bookmans’ customers and staff urging people “to turn on the light” by celebrating freedom of expression. With light bulbs burning brightly above their heads, each of them reads a single line from a banned or challenged book that testifies to the importance of reading, books and freedom of speech. “It is a wonderfully creative and inspiring video,” said American Booksellers Foundation for Free Expression President Chris Finan. “We hope all supporters of Banned Books Week will use social media to share it with their friends and the rest of the world, giving a big boost to this year’s read-out.” More than 800 people posted videos on YouTube during Banned Books Week last year. More information about the read-out, including updated criteria and submission information, is available here.
Statue of Freedom (Liberty) which appears atop the U.S. Capitol (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
On this date, Architect of the Capitol, Montgomery C. Meigs received the conceptual drawings from Thomas Crawford, an American neoclassical artist, for the Statue of Freedom. The statue was to be the crown jewel of the dome atop the Capitol Rotunda. The first sketch of the statue featured a woman with a liberty cap. When Secretary of War Jefferson Davis objected to the allegorical allusion to a freed Roman slave, the artist revised the drawing to feature a statue with a helmet. Although construction on the dome began in 1856, the dome and its final accouterments were not in place until December 2, 1863. Freedom’s story contains an ironic twist; a slave named Philip Reid played an integral part in placing Freedom atop the dome. A contract dispute threatened to halt the project’s progress until Reid determined how to complete the complicated casting of the statue. As a result, he oversaw the remainder of the its construction. To commemorate the completion of the statue and its crowning of the dome, officials organized a dramatic ceremony with a 35-gun military salute echoed by salutes from the 12 forts ringing the federal city.
The dome of the US Capitol building. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Spread the word; friends don't allow friends to repeat history.
At the time I wrote “Nickel and Dimed,” I wasn’t sure how many people it directly applied to — only that the official definition of poverty was way off the mark, since it defined an individual earning $7 an hour, as I did on average, as well out of poverty. But three months after the book was published, the Economic Policy Institute in Washington, D.C., issued a report entitled “Hardships in America: The Real Story of Working Families,” which found an astounding 29 percent of American families living in what could be more reasonably defined as poverty, meaning that they earned less than a barebones budget covering housing, child care, health care, food, transportation, and taxes — though not, it should be noted, any entertainment, meals out, cable TV, Internet service, vacations, or holiday gifts. 29 percent is a minority, but not a reassuringly small one, and other studies in the early 2000s came up with similar figures.
The big question, 10 years later, is whether things have improved or worsened for those in the bottom third of the income distribution, the people who clean hotel rooms, work in warehouses, wash dishes in restaurants, care for the very young and very old, and keep the shelves stocked in our stores. The short answer is that things have gotten much worse, especially since the economic downturn that began in 2008.
Liberty does not flow to those who lack the money to eat, or keep warm. We have strides to make to get to “liberty and justice for all.”
Libertarians, why do you oppose liberty for poor-but-working people?
Spread the word; friends don't allow friends to repeat history.
The U.S. economy appears to be coming apart at the seams. Unemployment remains at nearly ten percent, the highest level in almost 30 years; foreclosures have forced millions of Americans out of their homes; and real incomes have fallen faster and further than at any time since the Great Depression. Many of those laid off fear that the jobs they have lost — the secure, often unionized, industrial jobs that provided wealth, security and opportunity — will never return. They are probably right.
Cover of Winner-Take-All Politics, by Jacob Hacker and Paul Pierson
And yet a curious thing has happened in the midst of all this misery. The wealthiest Americans, among them presumably the very titans of global finance whose misadventures brought about the financial meltdown, got richer. And not just a little bit richer; a lot richer. In 2009, the average income of the top five percent of earners went up, while on average everyone else’s income went down. This was not an anomaly but rather a continuation of a 40-year trend of ballooning incomes at the very top and stagnant incomes in the middle and at the bottom. The share of total income going to the top one percent has increased from roughly eight percent in the 1960s to more than 20 percent today.
This what the political scientists Jacob Hacker and Paul Pierson call the “winner-take-all economy.” It is not a picture of a healthy society. Such a level of economic inequality, not seen in the United States since the eve of the Great Depression, bespeaks a political economy in which the financial rewards are increasingly concentrated among a tiny elite and whose risks are borne by an increasingly exposed and unprotected middle class. Income inequality in the United States is higher than in any other advanced democracy and by conventional measures comparable to that in countries such as Ghana, Nicaragua, and Turkmenistan.
Thomas Jefferson’s view of Education illustrated in this mural by Ezra Winter — Thomas Jefferson’s view of Education is illustrated in this mural by Ezra Winter in the South Reading Room on the top floor of the Adams Building of the Library of Congress. Other murals dedicated to Jefferson decorate all of the reading room’s walls.
Above all things I hope the education of the common people will be attended to; convinced that on their good sense we may rely with the most security for the preservation of a due degree of liberty.
This quotation comes from a letter more popular among Tea Partiers and other troglodytes for Jefferson’s harsh words against “energetic government,” which he feared might result from the Constitution. In the letter Jefferson said that he’d go with the will of the people if the document was ratified (it was). In the end, Jefferson said, just be sure to educate “the common people,” and things would work out to protect liberty.
Wise words much ignored and abused in state capitals and the U.S. Capitol these days.
I’ll wager that among the millions who did not study this letter are Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, and Texas Gov. Rick Perry. An uneducated populace is easier to cow, easier to control, and easier to enslave.
For a larger view of the mural, click on the thumbnail image.
Spread the word; friends don't allow friends to repeat history.
Or, until that account is unsuspended by the forces supporting Donald Trump: Follow @FillmoreWhite, the account of the Millard Fillmore White House Library
We've been soaking in the Bathtub for several months, long enough that some of the links we've used have gone to the Great Internet in the Sky.
If you find a dead link, please leave a comment to that post, and tell us what link has expired.
Thanks!
Retired teacher of law, economics, history, AP government, psychology and science. Former speechwriter, press guy and legislative aide in U.S. Senate. Former Department of Education. Former airline real estate, telecom towers, Big 6 (that old!) consultant. Lab and field research in air pollution control.
My blog, Millard Fillmore's Bathtub, is a continuing experiment to test how to use blogs to improve and speed up learning processes for students, perhaps by making some of the courses actually interesting. It is a blog for teachers, to see if we can use blogs. It is for people interested in social studies and social studies education, to see if we can learn to get it right. It's a blog for science fans, to promote good science and good science policy. It's a blog for people interested in good government and how to achieve it.
BS in Mass Communication, University of Utah
Graduate study in Rhetoric and Speech Communication, University of Arizona
JD from the National Law Center, George Washington University
Posted by Ed Darrell 
Millard Fillmore's Bathtub 