Great history of newspapers: Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus

December 24, 2010

“Papa says, ‘If you see it in the Sun, it’s so.'”

Do we, you and I in 2010,  stand as witnesses to the end of newspapers in America?

It’s been a grand history. Newspapering gave us great leaders like Benjamin Franklin. Newspapering gave us wars, like the Spanish-American War. Newspapering gave us Charlie Brown, Ann Landers, the Yellow Kid, Jim Murray, Red Smith, Thomas Nast (and Santa Claus), the Federalist Papers, and coupons to save money on laundry soap.

It’s been a curious history, too. An 1897 editorial vouching for Santa Claus rates as the most popular editorial of all time, according to the Newseum in Washington, D.C.

Francis Pharcellus Church, New York Sun writer who wrote "Yes Virginia, there is a Santa Claus" - Newseum

The man who saved Christmas, at least for Virginia O'Hanlon: Francis Pharcellus Church - Newseum image

In autumn, 1897, 8-year-old Virginia O’Hanlon of 115 West 59th Street in New York, wrote to the New York Sun with this simple question:

“Please tell me the truth; is there a Santa Claus?”

In the age of Yellow Journalism, the fiercely competitive Sun‘s editors turned the letter to Francis Pharcellus. He responded to little Virginia on September 21, 1897:

“Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus.”

Church’s brother, William Conant Church, owned and published the newspaper. Both had followed their father into the news business. They co-founded The Army-Navy Journal in 1863, and went on to a series of journalistic collaborations. Francis was 58 years old when he answered Virginia’s letter. (He died at age 67, in 1906.)

The New York Sun held down the conservative corner in New York journalism at the time, versus the New York Times and the New York Herald-Tribune. But it also had an interesting history, to a blogger intrigued by hoaxes. In 1835 the paper published a series of six newspaper stories falsely attributed to Sir John Herschel, a well-known astronomer, claiming to describe a civilization on the Moon — the Great Moon Hoax. The discovery was credited to a new, very powerful telescope.

In 1844 the paper published a hoax written by Edgar Allen Poe, the Balloon Hoax. Under a pseudonym, Poe wrote that a gas balloon had crossed the Atlantic in three days.

The Sun also featured outstanding reporting. A 1947 and 1948 series about crime on the docks of New York City won a Pulitzer Prize for writer Malcolm Johnson. That series inspired Elia Kazan’s 1954 movie On the Waterfront starring Marlon Brando, Rod Steiger, Eva Marie Saint, Karl Malden and Lee J. Cobb.

The New York Sun ceased publication in 1950.

For all of its history, the Sun and the Churches are most remembered for that defense of belief in Santa Claus.
Virginia O’Hanlon grew up, graduated from Hunter College, got a masters at Columbia, and earned a Ph.D. from Fordham. She taught in the New York City Public School system, from which she retired in 1959. She died in 1971.

Birth of tradition

Columbia University was Church’s alma mater, as well as O’Hanlon’s. Her letter and his response get a reading each year at the Yule Log Ceremony at Columbia College, along with the poem “A Visit from St. Nicholas.” Animated, live-acting, and other television productions have been mounted in 1974, 1991, and 2009.


Is there a Santa Claus? Did Church write a credible defense? The text of the letter and answer, below the fold.

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1 Comment | Historic documents, History, holiday, Holidays, Newspapers | Tagged: , , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

Power of good journalism: Cyberstalker jailed, no bail set

December 15, 2010

Good journalism is more priceless than gold.

Federal authorities arrested Vitaly Borker in New York for his threats against customers whom he had defrauded in on-line purchases of eyeglasses and frames.

The arrest came eight days after the New York Times published a lengthy story on Borker’s abusive behavior: Vitaly Borker advertised designer eyeglass frames on line; when a purchaser actually bought a frame, Borker would substitute a cheap knock-off worth much less than the purchaser paid. If and when purchasers complained, rather than cheerfully make a refund Borker would stalk them and make threats online, telling the purchasers he knew where they lived, and sending photos of the building in at least one case.

Authorities failed to act. It’s a shocking story that you should read; the Times reported:

Soon after, she discovered that DecorMyEyes had charged her $487 — or an extra $125. When she and Mr. Russo spoke again, she asked about the overcharge and said she would return the frames.

“What the hell am I supposed to do with these glasses?” she recalls Mr. Russo shouting. “I ordered them from France specifically for you!”

“I’m going to contact my credit card company,” she told him, “and dispute the charge.”

Until that moment, Mr. Russo was merely ornery. Now he erupted.

“Listen, bitch,” he fumed, according to Ms. Rodriguez. “I know your address. I’m one bridge over” — a reference, it turned out, to the company’s office in Brooklyn. Then, she said, he threatened to find her and commit an act of sexual violence too graphic to describe in a newspaper.

Ms. Rodriguez was shaken but undaunted. That day she called Citibank, which administers her MasterCard account, and after submitting some paperwork, she won a provisional victory. Her $487 would be refunded as the bank looked into the charge and discussed it with the owner of DecorMyEyes. A final determination, she was told, would take 60 days.

As that two-month deadline approached, Mr. Russo had dropped his claim for the contact lenses he’d never sent. But, she said, he began an increasingly nasty campaign to persuade her to contact Citibank and withdraw her dispute.

“Call me back or I’m going to drag you to small-claims court,” he wrote in an e-mail on Sept. 27. “You have one hour to call me back or I’m filing online.”

A few hours later, Mr. Russo sent details of what appeared to be a lawsuit filed in Brooklyn. It included a hearing date and time, the address of the court, a docket number and a demand for $1,500, which, the e-mail said, “includes my legal fees.”

On the strength of the Times’ reporting, federal authorities arrested Borker about a week later — the judge refused to allow bail.  Other agencies lined up to press charges once the man was in custody.

“Muckrakers” and investigative reporters long told that sunshine exposing wrongdoing is beneficial to the public, simply by the exposure.

Don’t we need more such reporting?

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Posted by Ed Darrell

Quote of the moment: Hamilton, on taxes and the Constitution, Federalist #30

October 16, 2010

They claim to be constitutionalists, and they claim to want to uphold the U.S. Constitution.  But here’s an excerpt from Federalist #30, in which Alexander Hamilton explains why it is necessary for a federal government to tax, and sometimes to tax heavily.

Alexander Hamilton

Alexander Hamilton: "Money is, with propriety, considered as the vital principle of the body politic; as that which sustains its life and motion, and enables it to perform its most essential functions."

This is the U.S. Constitution and the “Founding Fathers” the Tea Partiers hope you will never see, and this is the Constitution and Founders they work hard to hide (some highlights added):

IT HAS been already observed that the federal government ought to possess the power of providing for the support of the national forces; in which proposition was intended to be included the expense of raising troops, of building and equipping fleets, and all other expenses in any wise connected with military arrangements and operations. But these are not the only objects to which the jurisdiction of the Union, in respect to revenue, must necessarily be empowered to extend. It must embrace a provision for the support of the national civil list; for the payment of the national debts contracted, or that may be contracted; and, in general, for all those matters which will call for disbursements out of the national treasury. The conclusion is, that there must be interwoven, in the frame of the government, a general power of taxation, in one shape or another.

Money is, with propriety, considered as the vital principle of the body politic; as that which sustains its life and motion, and enables it to perform its most essential functions. A complete power, therefore, to procure a regular and adequate supply of it, as far as the resources of the community will permit, may be regarded as an indispensable ingredient in every constitution. From a deficiency in this particular, one of two evils must ensue; either the people must be subjected to continual plunder, as a substitute for a more eligible mode of supplying the public wants, or the government must sink into a fatal atrophy, and, in a short course of time, perish.

In the Ottoman or Turkish empire, the sovereign, though in other respects absolute master of the lives and fortunes of his subjects, has no right to impose a new tax. The consequence is that he permits the bashaws or governors of provinces to pillage the people without mercy; and, in turn, squeezes out of them the sums of which he stands in need, to satisfy his own exigencies and those of the state. In America, from a like cause, the government of the Union has gradually dwindled into a state of decay, approaching nearly to annihilation. Who can doubt, that the happiness of the people in both countries would be promoted by competent authorities in the proper hands, to provide the revenues which the necessities of the public might require?

The present Confederation, feeble as it is intended to repose in the United States, an unlimited power of providing for the pecuniary wants of the Union. But proceeding upon an erroneous principle, it has been done in such a manner as entirely to have frustrated the intention. Congress, by the articles which compose that compact (as has already been stated), are authorized to ascertain and call for any sums of money necessary, in their judgment, to the service of the United States; and their requisitions, if conformable to the rule of apportionment, are in every constitutional sense obligatory upon the States. These have no right to question the propriety of the demand; no discretion beyond that of devising the ways and means of furnishing the sums demanded. But though this be strictly and truly the case; though the assumption of such a right would be an infringement of the articles of Union; though it may seldom or never have been avowedly claimed, yet in practice it has been constantly exercised, and would continue to be so, as long as the revenues of the Confederacy should remain dependent on the intermediate agency of its members. What the consequences of this system have been, is within the knowledge of every man the least conversant in our public affairs, and has been amply unfolded in different parts of these inquiries. It is this which has chiefly contributed to reduce us to a situation, which affords ample cause both of mortification to ourselves, and of triumph to our enemies.

What remedy can there be for this situation, but in a change of the system which has produced it in a change of the fallacious and delusive system of quotas and requisitions? What substitute can there be imagined for this ignis fatuus in finance, but that of permitting the national government to raise its own revenues by the ordinary methods of taxation authorized in every well-ordered constitution of civil government? Ingenious men may declaim with plausibility on any subject; but no human ingenuity can point out any other expedient to rescue us from the inconveniences and embarrassments naturally resulting from defective supplies of the public treasury.

More: 

IT HAS been already observed that the federal government ought to possess the power of providing for the support of the national forces; in which proposition was intended to be included the expense of raising troops, of building and equipping fleets, and all other expenses in any wise connected with military arrangements and operations. But these are not the only objects to which the jurisdiction of the Union, in respect to revenue, must necessarily be empowered to extend. It must embrace a provision for the support of the national civil list; for the payment of the national debts contracted, or that may be contracted; and, in general, for all those matters which will call for disbursements out of the national treasury. The conclusion is, that there must be interwoven, in the frame of the government, a general power of taxation, in one shape or another.Money is, with propriety, considered as the vital principle of the body politic; as that which sustains its life and motion, and enables it to perform its most essential functions. A complete power, therefore, to procure a regular and adequate supply of it, as far as the resources of the community will permit, may be regarded as an indispensable ingredient in every constitution. From a deficiency in this particular, one of two evils must ensue; either the people must be subjected to continual plunder, as a substitute for a more eligible mode of supplying the public wants, or the government must sink into a fatal atrophy, and, in a short course of time, perish.

In the Ottoman or Turkish empire, the sovereign, though in other respects absolute master of the lives and fortunes of his subjects, has no right to impose a new tax. The consequence is that he permits the bashaws or governors of provinces to pillage the people without mercy; and, in turn, squeezes out of them the sums of which he stands in need, to satisfy his own exigencies and those of the state. In America, from a like cause, the government of the Union has gradually dwindled into a state of decay, approaching nearly to annihilation. Who can doubt, that the happiness of the people in both countries would be promoted by competent authorities in the proper hands, to provide the revenues which the necessities of the public might require?

The present Confederation, feeble as it is intended to repose in the United States, an unlimited power of providing for the pecuniary wants of the Union. But proceeding upon an erroneous principle, it has been done in such a manner as entirely to have frustrated the intention. Congress, by the articles which compose that compact (as has already been stated), are authorized to ascertain and call for any sums of money necessary, in their judgment, to the service of the United States; and their requisitions, if conformable to the rule of apportionment, are in every constitutional sense obligatory upon the States. These have no right to question the propriety of the demand; no discretion beyond that of devising the ways and means of furnishing the sums demanded. But though this be strictly and truly the case; though the assumption of such a right would be an infringement of the articles of Union; though it may seldom or never have been avowedly claimed, yet in practice it has been constantly exercised, and would continue to be so, as long as the revenues of the Confederacy should remain dependent on the intermediate agency of its members. What the consequences of this system have been, is within the knowledge of every man the least conversant in our public affairs, and has been amply unfolded in different parts of these inquiries. It is this which has chiefly contributed to reduce us to a situation, which affords ample cause both of mortification to ourselves, and of triumph to our enemies.

What remedy can there be for this situation, but in a change of the system which has produced it in a change of the fallacious and delusive system of quotas and requisitions? What substitute can there be imagined for this ignis fatuus in finance, but that of permitting the national government to raise its own revenues by the ordinary methods of taxation authorized in every well-ordered constitution of civil government? Ingenious men may declaim with plausibility on any subject; but no human ingenuity can point out any other expedient to rescue us from the inconveniences and embarrassments naturally resulting from defective supplies of the public treasury.

14 Comments | 100 Milestone Documents of U.S. History, 1787, 1789, Alexander Hamilton, DBQ sources, Education, Famous quotes, Literature, Newspapers, Politics, Quotes, Taxes, Teaching, U.S. Constitution | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

TARP saved my nation, and all I got was this bitter, cold tea party

October 5, 2010

Remember TARP, the Toxic Asset Relief Program?

Oh, that’s right — we hate it.  Big hole in the federal budget and all.

Then you should be dancing that it died Sunday night, right?  Yeah, that’s right:  TARP expired.

But, maybe we should be lamenting its passage, and celebrating it.  It ended up costing us almost nothing but the problem of having Tea Party, ignorant ingrates involved in the campaign.  It might even have turned a profit.  In any case, it didn’t leave a big hole in the federal budget, and there is little doubt that it saved us from the Greater Depression.

See the story at NPR:

What do we do with the end of TARP?

And what do we do with the news that TARP will not have cost anything like the $700 billion we thought it would? What if it really cost $50 billion, or less?

What if, in the end, the Toxic Asset Relief Program so controversial at birth and vilified throughout its two years of life turns out to have turned a profit for the government and the taxpayer?

We — most of the news media this is — simply don’t know what to do with this news.

The suggestion that TARP did not blow a hole in the federal budget potentially blows a hole in some other presumptions as well. Economists will argue for years over the necessity of TARP, and the rest of us can argue over the bonuses investment bankers still got (and continue to get).But we won’t argue about whether the government could or should have done more to prevent the collapse of the credit markets and the mass failure of banks in 2008. Because the government did do TARP, and those other things did not happen. We did not go back to 1929 or worse. And, unlovely as it may be, TARP remains the closest thing we have to an explanation for that.

Still, the expiration of the program as Sunday turned to Monday passed largely unremarked. And insofar as the media have noticed the story of TARP’s apparently much-reduced cost, that tale has been anything but ballyhooed.

(For an exception, see the package offered Sunday evening by Guy Raz and the crew at Weekend All Things Considered.)

On the last business day before TARP expired, The New York Times and The Washington Post did report the much-reduced cost figures — mentioning the potential for the program to actually make money for taxpayers in the final accounting.  But the Times put the story in the Business Section, and the Post played it on the Federal Page.

What other “common sense” delusions will misdirect this year’s election vote?

What thanks do we get?  What thanks do we give?

17 Comments | Accuracy, Elections, Free market economics, Freedom - Economic, Freedom - Political, History, News, Newspapers, Politics, Polling and Public Opinion | Tagged: , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

Texas poet: Edit out all the unwanted words . . . newspaper blackout

September 19, 2010

Great story about a Texas poet, Austin Kleon — and wouldn’t this be an interesting project for poetry study?  The method is called “newspaper blackout” in the story; a new genre of poetry?

From PBS’s Newshour, September 14, 2010 (transcript here):

I am reminded of the story of the sculptor who, when asked how he made such wonderful statues, said he merely chipped away from the stone everything that wasn’t the sculpture he wanted.  Who was that?

PBS Newshour provides the best coverage of literature and poetry of any major television news operation, another good reason to keep PBS well-funded.

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Posted by Ed Darrell

Photog (and Eagle Scout) Luke Sharrett leaving NY Times . . .

August 13, 2010

Go see the photos.  Seriously.  “The Capital was his classroom”, by David Dunlap.

Doubtless, there are other accomplished photojournalists in Washington who have won an Eagle Scout medal with bronze palm. Luke Sharrett of The Times may be the only one who earned his just six years ago.

And he is almost certainly the only photographer who’ll be leaving the D.C. press corps on Friday to start his junior year in college.

“Why are you doing that?” President Obama asked him as Air Force One was taking off the other day.

Dunlap does not say whether Sharrett earned the Photography Merit Badge.  Anyone know?

Leave a Comment » | Boy Scouts of America, Eagle Scout, Education, Higher education, News, Newspapers, photography | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

Dan Valentine – The pink cigarette lighter, part 4

July 22, 2010

By Dan Valentine

The pink cigarette lighter, part 4

When I was four or five, early ’50s, my dad quit The Salt Lake Tribune and we moved to San Francisco.

Actor Peter Lorre, who was known for his bulging eyes and for co-starring alongside Humphrey Bogart in films such as “Casablanca,” was in Salt Lake to perform in a stage reading from George Bernard Shaw’s play “Don Juan in Hell,” with Charles Laughton and two others. I think one was Agnes Moorehead. Charles Boyer may have been the fourth.

Peter Lorre

Peter Lorre, in "Secret Agent," 1936

My dad wrote: “The man with the ping-pong eyes is in town.” He was quite proud of that lead.

He woke up the next morning, picked the paper up off the front porch, and flipped to his column. It read: “The man with the table-tennis eyes is in town.”

Didn’t have same ring to it. Though, it had his by-line.

Someone on the rewrite desk had changed the lead. My dad blew a gasket and was told that “Ping Pong” was a brand name and the paper didn’t give free advertising. Back then, “Coca-Cola” wasn’t allowed in a story. Instead, carbonated beverage was substituted.

My dad quit shortly there after. One straw too many (in the carbonated beverage.) They had cut his column time after time.

Many years later, when I took over his column, one of the first bits of advice he gave me was: “Don’t read your column in the paper the next morning. It will give you high blood pressure.” I ignored this little nugget and I’ve high-blood pressure ever since.

One evening that very week, the phone rang at home. (We were living on Grove Avenue. The house is still there. I walked by it just a few short years ago.) My dad answered it and the voice on the other line said, “This is Charles Laughton. Join me for a drink.” Get outta here! My dad hung up on the voice. The phone rang again. “Seriously. I’m Charles Laughton. Let’s have a drink together.” Yeah, riiight! My dad slammed the phone down a second time. This little incident haunted my dad for many a year. Was it, indeed, Charles Laughton? I like to think, now that the two are both long parted, that my dad finally joined him for a toddy.

My dad got a job as a reporter, working for the San Francisco Examiner. He was given the Suicide Watch on Golden Gate Bridge, among other things. Yes, there was such a beat back then. Perhaps, still is, with the present economic woes. My dad’s job was to stroll up and down the bridge at night, waiting for distraught people to leap to their death, then write the story.

Noticing that there were many people with a sexual preference other than the so-called norm in the City by the Bay, and with time on his hands during the day, he asked a copy boy or girl to bring him all the files the Examiner had on homosexuals. He thought it would make an interesting human-interest story. The copy person brought him cart after cart, filled with file upon file, and my dad came to the conclusion that the story had been done before, many times, even back then.

My dad returned to Salt Lake a year and a half or so later when Art Deck, The Tribune’s senior editor, who liked my dad and liked the popularity of his column even more, asked him to return.

My first introduction to gays was, no doubt, TV and film. Liberace, Truman Capote, Charles Nelson Reilly, and rumors, just rumors at the time, that Rock Hudson was a member of the select two/three/four/ten/lord knows percent club.

Paul Lynde, who resided in the center square on Hollywood Squares for a long, long time, also comes to mind. He made many a guest appearance on Donny & Marie, filmed at the Osmond Studios in Orem, Utah.

In 1978, in Utah for a guest appearance, he had one too many drinks at the Sun Tavern, a gay bar on the west side of Salt Lake. The police were called. Finding him intoxicated and more than a little belligerent, one of the cops called to the scene reached for his cuffs. Lynde was told to take off his Rolex. Struggling to free it from his wrist, Lynde broke the clasp.

“Now, look what you’ve made me do!” he said, no doubt with that over-the-top way of saying things, sneer, snarl and all, only more so with a few drinks in him. And he slammed the Rolex to the sidewalk and stomped on it with both feet.

It’s in the police report. My dad brought a copy home from The Tribune. Also, in the report, was this: “In case of emergency contact Olive Osmond (Donny and Marie’s mom).” Soon after, he was dropped as a guest star.

The Sun Tavern.

There was a time, at the peak of my dad’s popularity (and, indeed, WAS he ever popular. He was a house-hold name in Utah and parts of Nevada and Idaho. In a well-respected survey conducted by those who did such surveys at the time, his readership in the Intermountain West was shown to be higher than that of the nationally-syndicated columnist Ann Landers)–where was I? Oh, yes, at my dad’s peak, celebrities in town for whatever reason (Myrna Loy, in town to film “Airport;” Martina Martin (Dean Martni’s daughter), in town with Holiday on Ice or Ice Capades (can’t remember which); Gale Storm, TV’s My Little Margie; in town in a play; Ricardo Monteblan, in town for a play; the list goes on and on), they all would pay a call on my dad for publicity for whatever project they were involved in at the moment.

One who walked into The Tribune city room to pay his respects (in exchange for a well-read column item) was Charles Pierce. (Wikipedia: “One of the 20th Century’s foremost female impersonators.”) He was particularly known for his impersonation of Bette Davis. He also did Mae West, Tallulah Bankhead, Gloria Swanson, Katherine Hepburn, Carol Channing, and Joan Crawford, among many others.

My dad interviewed Joan Crawford once. She was in Salt Lake representing Pepsi, her second career. Her fourth husband was president of the carbonated beverage company. After his death in 1959, she was appointed to its Board of Directors. At a Pepsi reception at the Salt Palace, she took a liking to him. So, someone at The Trib told me later. Of course! He made her laugh.

When Charles Pierce invited my dad and mom to come see the show at the Sun Tavern, a gay bar, my mom didn’t say, “What will people think?” She looooved Bette Davis. No matter that it wasn’t really her, it was her spirit that mattered. Bette was her role-model. A piece or two ago, I wrote that my dad looooved Elko, Nevada. Picture my mom saying, “What a dump!” and you’ve got my mom.

My dad looked important, as did my mom. On a flight once a passenger sitting next to him, turned to inquire, “Are you somebody?” My dad replied, “I’ve always thought so.”

When I caught up with my first ship in the Navy, it was docked in Guam. I was buffing a passageway or whatever, as a member of deck force, when a boatswain’s mate, extremely excited, hurried below to tell everyone that Jackie Gleason and Carol Channing were on the pier. You must be kidding! Guam!? We all were allowed to go topside to take a gander and, lo and behold, there they were. My dad and mom.

In my mom’s middle-years, when dressed to the gills, she could pass as Carol Channing’s twin. Both were blondes. (My dad looooved blondes. He used to say, “I don’t know if blondes have more fun, but the people with ‘em do.”)

And my dad, he was often told he looked like Jackie Gleason. Same bulging eyes (ping-pong like, not tennis-table like), same weight near-bouts, both funny as can be. The territorial governor of Guam at the time was from Utah–local angle–and he had flown there, along with my mom, to interview him. Yeah, sure!

I mention this because I can picture my mom dressed to the nines, standing in line to use the Sun Tavern’s only restroom–no need for two!–in between acts and the fellow in front or back complimenting her on her impersonation of Carol Channing. My mom, bless her soul, she was a trouper! But that’s how much she loooooved Bette Davis.

My first recollection of what could be called a gay experience happened in Bountiful, Utah, at a theater-in-the-round musical production of Peter Pan, starring Victor Buono (reputed by some to be gay) as Captain Hook and Ruta Lee (reputed, without question, to be straight) as Peter. I was thirteen or so.

Onstage–scene/act/whatever/I’ve forgot–Tinkerbell was dying, poisoned by Captain Hook, the deadly brew meant for Peter. Kneeling beside her and beside himself, as they say, Peter asked her what he could do to help. She told him that she thought she could get all-better if children just believe in Fairies.

So, in desperation, to save her life, Peter (Ruta Lee) ran to the footlights and asked the audience, “Do you believe in Fairies?”

Children, one and all, me included, shouted, “YES!” (Si, indeed! Hey, Fairies depend on the belief of kids, of all ages.) A very poignant moment … ruined just a tiny bit by a few grown-ups – not many but enough to be heard by me and others – snickering in their seats, aloud, to themselves. (Oh, yeah! I believe in fairies. One styles my wife’s hair.) Very sad and truly scary when you stop to think about it.

A few weeks or months later, another play came to town. It was called “Pajama Bottoms.” The gist of the play: A gay man – though, the word “gay” was never uttered – doesn’t want to be a gay man. So, he decides he is not going to be a gay man. He starts pursuing women. Finally, by the end of the first act, he meets up with one who makes his wish come true. The first act curtain falls as he walks out of the bedroom, a smile on is face. He’s a straight!

The second act consists of him dating woman after woman, sleeping with each of them, because now he’s a man. Still, something’s missing. Love. By the time the final curtain falls, he has found true love.

Very politically incorrect! But, oh, how I loved that play! And I’ll tell you why. The male lead was a friend of Victor Buono’s. I can’t remember his first name, but his last name was McMurtry. And he was told to look up my dad. He got us front row seats and after the show, my dad, mom, and I joined him and the cast (and the cast, other than himself, were all beautiful actresses, six in all) for drinks at the Manhattan Club in Salt Lake. I was, like, fourteen or so then, way underage. But Tony Hatsis, the owner, sat us at a table in the back, and, oh, what a night! When you’re fourteen, you’re not a threat. So, all the young actresses loved me. Oh, what a night! They signed my program and I kept that treasure until just a few months ago. It is now in a Houston dump. But, oh, what a night!

I didn’t give gays much of a thought, good, bad, or indifferent, until I moved to San Francisco in the late ’70s for some-two years.

I was there the night Harvey Milk, the first openly gay person to be elected to public office in the state, was assassinated. It happened just a few blocks from where I was living at the time. Parked cars were set on fire. Police sirens screamed all night long. I’m a very curious fellow, but I stayed put in my room that evening.

Once, while having a drink in a bar, an older gentleman sitting next to me, after conversing some, inquired politely if I wanted to go home with him for the night. I politely declined. I took no offense and went on my way.

In San Francisco, I met a nightclub entertainer at a piano bar on Powell Street. Lucina! German-born. Sang Marlene Dietrich songs. Still is German. Still sings Marlene standards. Still lives in the Bay Area. She used to call me Dahling.

Late night once, she took me to one of the many after-hour gay dance clubs in town, where those dancing up a storm on the floor would inhale Poppers, amyl nitrate, that came in small ampoules. “Pop! Release the fumes! Snort!” Back in the ’70s, in Baghdad by the Bay, young, old, straight, and gay, were “enhancing their lives” with ‘em. I can’t remember my charming, street-wise chantreus taking a trial sniff. But, fool that I am, I did. Just a whiff or two. Research for a future whatever. Yeah, riiiight!

Flip the calendar pages.

After two years in San Francisco, I was given the opportunity to write my dad’s column. He was written out, as they say, and ill. First, it was complications from diabetes. Then, he got shingles. Then, anorexia. And, then, he fell and, well, I’ll write about that some other time …

So, anyway, one day I was flipping through some out-of-town newspapers, looking for a germ of an idea or two for a column, when I came across an item that read: Virtually all the early patients diagnosed with AIDS have used Poppers at least once. My heart sank. I thought to myself: Man, oh, man, am I in trouble!

Soon after, Poppers were found not to be the cause of AIDS. I wiped the sweat off my brow. Whew!

In 1982, Paul Lynde was found dead in his Hollywood home with a bottle of Poppers. Double whew!! I’d only had a whiff or two.

10 Comments | Dan Valentine, History, Journalism, Life, Newspapers | Tagged: , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

I get e-mail: Media Matters calls bluffs of climate change “skeptics”

July 10, 2010

Media Matters may be a site worth tracking more closely, not only on climate issues:

Media Matters: The greatest science “scandal” “in the history of man” predictably falls apart

In their never-ending quest to prove that they understand the intricacies of climate science better than actual climate scientists, conservative media figures routinely promote any ridiculous “evidence” they think undermines the scientific consensus about climate change.

This is a group that repeatedly points to snowstorms in February as proof that global warming is not real; claims that CO2 can’t be a pollutant because “we breathe” it; and ignores actual temperature data to baselessly claim that the Earth is really “cooling.”

Last year, conservative climate change skeptics, in the words of Wall Street Journal’s Kimberly Strassel, thought they had found a “gold mine.” Conservative media figures seized on emails stolen from climate scientists and proceeded to completely distort their contents. As we pointed out repeatedly at the time, this “scandal” relied on outrageous misrepresentations of the stolen emails and did not in any way undermine the scientific consensus about climate change.

Nevertheless, conservative media figures incessantly hyped the non-scandal with their usual overblown rhetoric:

  • Glenn Beck — who says he is not a conspiracy theorist, remember — suggested in the wake of “Climategate” that climate change is a “scam.” He also said that if the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report “had been done by Japanese scientists, there is not enough knives on planet Earth for hara-kiri.”
  • Noted climatologist Rush Limbaugh, who frequently decries the supposed global warming “hoax,” proposed that all of the scientists involved in “Climategate” should be “named and fired, drawn and quartered, or whatever it is.”
  • Andrew Breitbart called for “capital punishment” for NASA scientist James Hansen, because “Climategate” was supposedly “high treason.”
  • The Washington Times, Michelle Malkin, Ann Coulter, Investor’s Business Daily, The American Spectator’s Robert Stacy McCain, Rich Lowry, Newsmax’s James Hirsen, and Michael Ledeen all joined forces to smear the scientific consensus on climate change as a “cult.”
  • Fox News’ Mike Huckabee explained that “Jesus would be a truthseeker” while discussing the “revelation” that scientists had “cooked” climate change data.

The crew at Fox & Friends spent this year’s Earth Day promoting an important cause. No, not encouraging environmental consciousness — they devoted the show to pushing “Climategate” falsehoods in order to falsely claim that “scientists held back data that discredits theories on global warming.” They were joined by Brent Bozell of the Media Research Center, who was there to complain about non-Fox networks “dismiss[ing]” and “ignor[ing]” the story.

Last December, Bozell told Lou Dobbs that “Climategate” is the “biggest scandal in terms of science, finance, and politics … in the history of man.” After Bozell compared the climate science “cover-up” to “the craziness” of Dan Brown’s fiction, he actually managed to draw laughter from Dobbs. Unfortunately, contrary to Bozell’s suggestion that media outlets ignored the story, numerous non-Fox “Climategate” stories adopted conservatives’ dishonest framing of the non-story.

And now for the inevitable conclusion of this manufactured controversy.

As reported by The New York Times’ Andrew Revkin — who, by the way, Rush Limbaugh thinks should “just go kill” himself — the Independent Climate Change Email Review “cleared climate scientists and administrators” involved in “Climategate” of “malfeasance.” This follows several other exonerations of the scientists involved in the phony scandal. In response, Media Matters, joined by numerous progressive and clean energy groups, called on all outlets that reported on the original “Climategate” controversy to set the record straight.

So this leaves us where we were before the “Climategate” freakout: There is still overwhelming scientific evidence supporting the theory of global warming.

And once again conservative media proved that they don’t hesitate to rely on blatant distortions, outright falsehoods, and a complete disregard for reality to advance their political causes.

Mainstream media outlets would be doing everyone a service if they remembered that the next time they decide to report on whatever Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, Fox News, and the perpetual conservative outrage machine are yelling about.

Conservatives’ phony scandal of the week: The Obama Justice Department and the New Black Panther Party

While we’re on the subject of manufactured scandals that respectable media outlets shouldn’t take seriously, Fox News and its friends in the conservative echo chamber spent much of the week promoting phony, trumped-up allegations against the Justice Department.

In short, conservative media outlets have been aggressively promoting the charge by GOP activist J. Christian Adams that President Obama’s Justice Department engaged in racially charged “corruption” when it partially dismissed a case against members of the New Black Panther Party for allegedly engaging in voter intimidation outside of a Philadelphia polling center on Election Day in 2008.

As we have documented extensively, Adams should not be trusted. He is a long-time right-wing activist with extensive ties to the Bush-era politicization of the Justice Department. Adams himself has admitted that he lacks first-hand knowledge to support his accusations. Additionally, Adams’ charge that the DOJ’s action in the New Black Panther case shows unprecedented, racially motivated corruption is undermined by the fact that the Obama DOJ obtained judgment against one of the defendants, and that the Bush DOJ declined to pursue similar allegations against a group of Minutemen — one of whom was carrying a gun — in 2006.

Even the Republican vice chairwoman of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights called the New Black Panthers case “very small potatoes” and said an investigation into the DOJ’s decision is full of “overheated rhetoric filled with insinuations and unsubstantiated charges.”

And yet again, the fact that this is a completely manufactured scandal didn’t stop conservative media figures from engaging in one of their time-honored traditions: attempting to obscure their own problems with race by accusing others of racism.

Radio host Jim Quinn — who once told “race-baiting” African-American “ingrates” to “get on your knees” and “kiss the American dirt” because slavery brought them to the U.S. — hyped the New Black Panther story by calling the civil rights community “race-baiting poverty pimps.”

Rush Limbaugh — who earlier this week announced that if Obama wasn’t black he’d be a “tour guide in Honolulu” and claimed Obama is using the office of the presidency to seek “payback” for the country’s history of racism — forwarded Adams’ charge that the case was dropped because of racially charged corruption.

Beck, who infamously called President Obama a “racist” with a “deep seated hatred for white people or the white culture,” declared that the Obama administration is “full” of “people that will excuse” the “hatred” of the New Black Panthers. He also relied on falsehoods to try to connect Obama to the New Black Panthers, and claimed today that the New Black Panthers are part of Obama’s “army of thugs.”

Of course, the New Black Panthers are a fringe hate group, and only a cynical race-baiter like Glenn Beck would claim they are somehow part of Barack Obama’s imaginary “army of thugs.”

But I’m sure they appreciate all of the publicity, courtesy of Glenn Beck and Fox News.

Bek Younuhvercity

This week also marked the launch of Beck’s latest attempt to grab money from “educate” his audience: Beck University.

As Beck described it, the online Beck University is an “academic program” that would be a “unique experience bringing together experts in the fields of religion, American history, and economics.” At the outset of the first “course” — Faith 101, with frequent Beck guest/promoter of historical misinformation David Barton — Beck announced that viewers “will learn more in the next hour than you’ve probably learned in your entire life about American history.”

Laughable hyperbole aside, as we pointed out this week, Glenn Beck is uniquely unqualified to found a university, considering he regularly traffics in bizarre conspiracy theories, distortions, and downright falsehoods on a wide variety of subjects.

The day after the first “course” at Beck University, Beck stood in front of his blackboard and labeled various historical figures “heros” or “villians.”

And lastly, by my count, between his TV show last night and his radio program today, Beck launched no fewer than four baseless charges that, by his standards, should get him fired.

This weekly wrap-up was compiled by Media Matters’ Ben Dimiero.

Whom the gods destroy, they first make mad, Euripides said (paraphrased).  With that ancient wisdom in hand, one might be well advised not to stand next to Glenn Beck or Fox News.

If Glenn Beck wishes to know the evils of Woodrow Wilson or Theodore Roosevelt, I can point him to sources.  In spite of those evils, however, they remain heroes of American history for the good things they did.  Beck criticizes them for those good things, however, and not for their failures (including Wilson’s patent racism, and Roosevelt’s failure to push for integration at opportune times — to Beck, those would be virtues, I fear).

Visit Media Matters here, sign up for Media Matters’ e-mail newsletter here.

9 Comments | Accuracy, Climate change, climate_change, Conservation, Global warming, History, Hoaxes, Journalism, News, Newspapers, Political Smear, Politics, Science, War on Education | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

Boy Scouts Centennial: Dan Beard and Ed Dodd

June 21, 2010

Dan Beard, a founder of Boy Scouts of America, and cartoonist Ed Dodd, photo dated (incorrectly) February 14, 1950 – Georgia State University Library Photography Collection, Atlanta Area Photographs from the Lane Brothers and Tracy O’Neal Collections

Dan Beard, a founder of Boy Scouts of America, and cartoonist Ed Dodd, photo dated (incorrectly) February 14, 1950 – Georgia State University Library Photography Collection, Atlanta Area Photographs from the Lane Brothers and Tracy O’Neal Collections

Daniel Carter Beard was best known as an illustrator of children’s adventure books.  He founded a group for boys, the Sons of Daniel Boone, in 1905.  That group was merged into the Boy Scouts of America at BSA’s founding in 1910.

Ed Dodd (November 7, 1902 – May 27, 1991) was an illustrator and cartoonist, probably best known for his comic strip “Mark Trail,” which is still carried in many newspapers today.

According to his listing at Wikipedia:

Ed Dodd went to work for Dan Beard, founder of the Boy Scouts of America, at the age of 16. Dodd worked at Beard’s camp in Pennsylvania for thirteen summers, where he honed his writing and illustration skills under Beard’s guidance. Dodd became a scoutmaster and the first paid Youth and Physical Education Director for the city of Gainesville, Georgia.

Another story of Scouting providing a career for a kid, another story of Scouting providing a career for an illustrator (see also Norman Rockwell, and the Csataris).

Dodd was a Georgian.  This photograph, dated February 14, 1950, shows a meeting of the two illustrators, with Dodd appearing older than the 16 he was when he first met Beard.  The photo is in the collections of the Georgia State University Library, in the Atlanta Area Photographs from the Lane Brothers and Tracy O’Neal Collections.  We might assume it was taken in Georgia, perhaps at Dodd’s “Lost Forest” home and workshop.

We know that can’t be the right date, however, since Dan Beard died in 1941.

Who can shed more light on this bit of history?

Updates:  See comments below — among other things, we know that the February 14, 1950 date was the date that a duplicate negative was made.  Please note in comments if you have further details.

More:

Mark Trail strip on NOAA's 200th-2D-MarkTrail650

Click on image: Marke Trail on NOAA’s 200th anniversary; King Features Syndicate

Ed Dodd and others in his studio at Lost Forest, Georgia, drawing the comic strip Mark Trail - Wikimedia

Dodd and others working on “Mark Trail”: The Mark Trail studio was on the second floor of Ed Dodd’s Frank Lloyd Wright-designed home in the Lost Forest at the Atlanta suburb of Sandy Springs, Georgia. At work are (l. to r.) Ed Dodd, Jack Elrod, Tom Hill and Rhett Carmichael. The 130-acre Lost Forest was the model for the fictional Lost Forest National Forest in the strip. Dodd’s house was located on Marsh Creek, a tributary of the Chattahoochee River. Wikimedia photo and caption

  • Sadly, Dodd’s Lost Forest was completely burned in 1996.  I can find no information on any of the studio surviving the fire (anyone know differently?).   Dodd was honored in 1991 with the naming of the Mark Trail Wilderness Area, in the Chattahoochee National Forest.
  • According to the official information at King Features Syndicate, Jack Elrod first assisted Dodd, then in 1978 took over the creative writing and drawing of the strip when Dodd retired and Tom Hill, who had done the Sunday strips, died.  Elrod was a Boy Scout when he first met Dodd, in Dodd’s role as Scoutmaster.  The Scouting links are strong in this strip.

Tip of the old scrub brush to Chamblee54, for showing the way to the Georgia State University photographs.

[Editor’s note: Georgia State Library keeps changing the link url on the photograph; if you find a higher resolution version, please, please let us know where it is!]

9 Comments | Boy Scouts of America, Cartoons, Conservation, History, National Wilderness Area, Newspapers, Wilderness | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

Lessons of history: How to boost newspaper sales with Sarah Bernhardt

June 20, 2010

Sarah Bernhardt selling newspapers in Salt Lake City, March 28, 1913 - Utah Historical Society image

Sarah Bernhardt, in fur, selling newspapers in Salt Lake City, March 28, 1913 - Utah Historical Society image

Just get the most famous actress in the world to hawk the newspaper on the street.

In this photo Sarah Bernhardt sells newspapers to a group of men in the street in Salt Lake City (probably State Street, but perhaps Main Street; I have not identified the building behind her in the photograph).  The photograph is from the Shipler Company Collection at the Utah Historical Society.

In 1913, Bernhardt was in the early autumn of her career, with several movies but not many plays in front of her.  She had lost a leg to gangrene from a badly-treated broken knee in 1905 (in Rio), but still acted in plays that she produced herself, and in movies.

The photo is dated 1913.  Bernhardt conducted a tour of the U.S. in 1915.  One may wonder if the date was misread from a handwritten note.

I wonder: Who are other people in the photo?

1 Comment | History, History images, Newspapers, photography, Utah | Tagged: , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

Washington Times felled by DDT poisoning

June 9, 2010

Washington Times‘ owner, the Unification Church, put the paper up for sale earlier this year — tired of losing north of $30 million a year on the thing.  It appears that, in a cost-cutting move, the paper has laid off all its fact checkers and most of its editors.

And anyone with a brain.

DDT use in the U.S. peaked in 1959, with 70 million pounds of the stuff used in that year. This ad comes from about that time.

DDT use in the U.S. peaked in 1959, with 70 million pounds of the stuff used in that year. This ad for a French product containing DDT comes from about that time.

How do we know?

Our old friend Stephen Milloy complains about Time Magazine’s “50 Worst Inventions” list, including, especially the listing of DDT, as discussed earlier.  It’s wrong, and silly.  Good fact checkers, and good editors, wouldn’t let such claptrap make it into print.

Milloy packed an astounding number of whoppers in a short paragraph about DDT:

From 1943 through its banning by the EPA in 1972, DDT saved hundreds of millions of lives all over the world from a variety of vector-borne diseases. Even when Environmental Protection Agency Administrator (and closeted environmental activist) William D. Ruckelshaus banned DDT in 1972, he did so despite a finding from an EPA administrative law judge who, after seven months and 9,000 pages of testimony, ruled that DDT presented no threat of harm to humans or wildlife. Today, a million children die every year from malaria. DDT could safely make a tremendous dent in that toll.

Let us count the errors and falsehoods:

1.  DDT was used against typhus from 1943 through about 1946, and against bedbugs; it saved millions, but not hundreds of millions. Death tolls from typhus rarely rose over a million a year, if it ever did.  Bedbugs don’t kill, they just itch.  If we add in malaria after 1946, in a few years we push to four million deaths total from insect-borne diseases — but of course, that’s with DDT being used.  If we charitably claim DDT saved four million lives a year between 1943 and 1972, we get a total of 117 million lives saved.  But we know that figure is inflated a lot.

Sure, DDT helped stop some disease epidemics.  But it didn’t save “hundreds of millions of lives” in 29 years of use.  The National Academy of Sciences, in a book noting that DDT should be banned because its dangers far outweigh its long-term benefits, goofed and said DDT had saved 500 million lives from malaria, and said DDT is one of the most beneficial chemicals ever devised by humans.  500 million is the annual infection rate from malaria, with a high of nearly four million deaths, but in most years under a million deaths.  Malaria kills about one of every 500 people infected in a year.  That’s far too many deaths, but it’s not as many lives saved as Milloy claims.

NAS grossly overstated the benefits of DDT, and still called for it to be banned.

The question is, why is Milloy grossly inflating his figures?  Isn’t it good enough for DDT to be recognized as one of the most beneficial substances ever devised?

My father always warned that when advertisers start inflating their claims, they are trying to hide something nasty.

2.  Ruckelshaus didn’t ban DDT on his own — nor was he a “closeted” environmentalist. He got the job at EPA because he was an outstanding lawyer and administrator, with deep understanding of environmental issues — his environmentalism was one of his chief qualifications for the job.  (Maybe Milloy spent the ’70s in a closet, and assumes everyone else did, too?)  But EPA acted only when ordered to act by two different federal courts (Judge David Bazelon ordered an end to all use of DDT at one of the trials).  At trial, DDT had been found to be inherently dangerous and uncontrollable.  Both courts were ready to order DDT banned completely, but stayed those orders pending EPA’s regulatory hearings and action.

In fact, regulatory actions against DDT began in the 1950s; by 1970, scientific evidence was overwhelming (and it has not be contradicted:

The U.S. Department of Agriculture, the federal agency with responsibility of regulating pesticides before the formation of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency in 1970, began regulatory actions in the late 1950s and 1960s to prohibit many of DDT’s uses because of mounting evidence of the pesticide’s declining benefits and environmental and toxicological effects. Rachel Carson’s book Silent Spring in 1962 stimulated widespread public concern over the dangers of improper pesticide use and the need for better pesticide controls.

In 1972, EPA issued a cancellation order for DDT based on adverse environmental effects of its use, such as those to wildlife, as well as DDT’s potential human health risks. Since then, studies have continued, and a causal relationship between DDT exposure and reproductive effects is suspected. Today, DDT is classified as a probable human carcinogen by U.S. and international authorities. This classification is based on animal studies in which some animals developed liver tumors.

DDT is known to be very persistent in the environment, will accumulate in fatty tissues, and can travel long distances in the upper atmosphere. Since the use of DDT was discontinued in the United States, its concentration in the environment and animals has decreased, but because of its persistence, residues of concern from historical use still remain.

3.  Judge Sweeney ruled that DDT is dangerous to humans and especially wildlife, but that DDT’s new, Rachel-Carson-friendly label would probably protect human health and the environment. EPA Administrative Law Judge Edmund Sweeney presided at the hearings in 1971.  As in the two previous federal court trials, DDT advocates had ample opportunity to make their case.  32 companies and agencies defended the use of DDT in the proceeding.  Just prior to the hearings, DDT manufacturers announced plans to relabel DDT for use only in small amounts, against disease, or in emergencies, and not in broadcast spraying ever.  This proved significant later.

Judge Sweeney did not find that DDT is harmless.  Quite to the contrary, Sweeney wrote in the findings of the hearing:

20.  DDT can have a deleterious effect on freshwater fish and estuarine organisms when directly applied to the water.

21.  DDT is used as a rodenticide. [DDT was used to kill bats in homes and office buildings; this was so effective that, coupled with accidental dosing of bats from their eating insects carrying DDT,  it actually threatened to wipe out some species of bat in the southwest U.S.]

22.  DDT can have an adverse effect on beneficial animals.

23.  DDT is concentrated in organisms and can be transferred through food chains.

DDT use in the U.S. had dropped from a 1959 high of 79 million pounds, to just 12 million pounds by 1972.  Hazards from DDT use prompted federal agencies such as the Department of Agriculture and Department of Interior to severely restrict or stop use of the stuff prior to 1963.  Seeing the writing on the wall, manufacturers tried to keep DDT on the market by labeling it very restrictively.  That would allow people to buy it legally,  and then use it illegally, but such misuse can almost never be prosecuted.

Sweeney wrote that, under the new, very restrictive label, DDT could be kept on the market.  Ruckelshaus ruled that EPA had a duty to protect the environment even from abusive, off-label use, and issued a ban on all agricultural use.

4.  More DDT today won’t significantly reduce malaria’s death toll. Milloy fails to mention that DDT use against malaria was slowed dramatically in the mid-1960s — seven years before the U.S. banned spraying cotton with it — because mosquitoes had become resistant and immune to DDT.  DDT use was not stopped because of the U.S. ban on spraying crops; DDT use was reduced because it didn’t work.

Milloy also ignores the fact that DDT is being used today.  Not all populations of mosquitoes developed immunity, yet.  DDT has a place in a carefully-managed program of “integrated vector management,” involving rotating several pesticides to ensure mosquitoes don’t evolve immunity, and spraying small amounts of the pesticide on the walls of houses where it is most effective, and ensuring that DDT especially does not get outdoors.

To the extent DDT can be used effectively, it is being used.  More DDT can only cause environmental harm, and perhaps harm to human health.

Most significantly, Milloy grossly overstates the effectiveness of DDT.  Deaths from malaria numbered nearly 3 million a year in the late 1950s; by the middle 1960s, the death rate hovered near 2 million per year.  Today, annual death rates are under a million — less than half the death rate when DDT use was at its peak.  Were DDT the panacea Milloy claims, shouldn’t the death numbers go the other way?

Milloy gets away making wild, misleading and inaccurate claims when editors don’t bother to read his stuff, and they don’t bother to ask “does this make sense?”  Nothing Milloy claims could be confirmed with a search of PubMed, the most easily accessible, authoritative data base of serious science journals dealing with health.

Obviously, Washington Times didn’t bother to check.  Were all the fact checkers let go?

Even more lunatic

Milloy also attacked the decision to get lead out of gasoline.  Ignoring all the facts and the astoundingly long history of severe health effects from lead pollution, Milloy dropped this stinking mental turd:

As to leaded gasoline, we can safely say that leaded gasoline helped provide America and the world with unprecedented freedom and fueled tremendous prosperity. We don’t use leaded gasoline in the United States anymore, but more because people simply don’t like the idea of leaded gasoline as opposed to any body of science showing that it caused anybody any harm. It’s the dose that makes the poison, and there never was enough lead in the ambient environment to threaten health.

The U.S. found that getting lead out of gasoline actually improved our national IQ.  Lead’s health effects were so pervasive, there was an almost-immediate improvement in health for the entire nation, especially children, when lead was removed.  Denying the harms of tetraethyl lead in gasoline goes past junk science, to outright falsehood.

What is Milloy’s fascination with presenting deadly poisons as “harmless?”  Why does he hate children so?

Why do publications not catch these hallucination-like errors and junk science promotions when he writes them?

Antidote to DDT poisoning in humans:  Spread the facts:

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4 Comments | Accuracy, Africa, DDT, Disease, Environmental protection, History, Journalism, Junk science, Newspapers, Public health, Rampant stupidity, Regulation, Science | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

Maybe, 4th grader disproves much warming in Beeville, not entire planet?

June 7, 2010

Hmmm.  News from Beeville is tough to come by when limited to calls that tend to catch school officials before they get to their office or after they go home (early, by most standards — but it’s summer, so we cut ’em some slack).

But we can find more information on what would be an astounding, groundbreaking study by 4th grader Julisa Castillo, which has been advertised as disproving global warming.

Again from the Beeville Bee-Picayune, about five months ago:

Conclusion: ‘pretty creative’

by Scott Reese Willey
As world leaders meet in Copenhagen to draft legislation to rein in the release of greenhouse gases and stem climate change, an R.A. Hall Elementary School student is questioning the science supporting global warming.

High school student judging R. A. Hall Elementary science fair projects

Caption from Beeville Bee-Picayune: A.C. Jones High School student Zachary Johnson, above, looks over a science experiment entered in R.A. Hall’s annual science fair. Zachary and other members of the high school’s science club judged the exhibits. Photo from, and read more at: mySouTex.com - Conclusion ‘pretty creative’

“There is not enough evidence to prove global warming is occurring,” fourth-grader Julisa Raquel Castillo concluded in a science project she entered in the campus’ annual science fair on Tuesday.

Julisa studied temperatures in Beeville for the past 109 years to develop her conclusion.

She researched online data basis of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, or NOAA, the National Weather Service, and checked out books on climate change at the Joe Barnhart Bee County Library.

Her findings:

• temperatures rose and fell from 1900 to 1950.

• temperatures in Beeville cooled down over a 20-year period beginning in 1955 and ending in 1975.

• Since 2001, temperatures in Beeville have grown cooler year after year.

Close to 200 R.A. Hall students entered projects in this year’s science fair, said organizer Denise Salvagno, who also teaches the school’s gifted and talented students.

Fourth- and fifth-graders were required to enter projects as part of class work; however, students in grades first, second and third could enter projects if they desired.

Students in Ben Barris’ science club at A.C. Jones High School judged the projects.

“Some of these projects are pretty creative,” said Zachary Johnson, a senior at A.C. Jones and one of the judges. “You can tell a lot of the students put a lot of effort into their projects. Some of them didn’t put much effort into it but a lot of them did and, overall, I’m impressed with what I am seeing.”

Fourth-grader Kaleb Maguire proved that all tap water in Beeville was the same quality.

He took samples of water at 10 different sites across town and came to the conclusion that because the water originated at the same source — the city’s fresh water plant — the samples contained the same amount of alkalinity, pH and free chlorine.

Fourth-grader Amber Martinez concluded that worms subjected to music were more alert than those not.

And fourth-grader Sam Waters’ project was no doubt much enjoyed by his pet pooch, Lucky.

Sam wanted to know which meat his dog would like more. Turns out Lucky preferred chicken over both hotdogs and sausage.

Fifth-grader Savannah Gonzales found out that ants prefer cheese over sugar, but classmate Misty Nienhouse concluded that ants preferred sugar over cheese. Tessa Giannini’s science project also seemed to prove that ants preferred sugar over cheese, bread or anything else.

However, fourth-grader Faith Hernandez conducted a similar experiment and concluded ants preferred cheese over ham.

Yet, Jose Vivesos, a fourth-grader, concluded that ants prefer sugar water over anything else.

Nathanial Martinez, also a fourth-grader, built a working seismograph and demonstrated how it detected and recorded earthquakes.

Fifth-grader Jamison Hunter decided to see if money in the hand made a difference in someone’s heart rate.

He recorded the heart rate of each volunteer without money in their hand, with one dollar bill in their hand, two one dollar bills in their hand and three one dollar bills in their hand.

His conclusion: “From this experiment, I learned that everyone’s heart rate is different by how much money they hold,” he said. “No two people had the same results even with the test being done the same way.”

Read more: mySouTex.com – Conclusion ‘pretty creative’

Temperatures may have cooled in Beeville.  Can we extrapolate Beeville to the entire planet?

The title of the project may be a little bit ambitious.

[See earlier post on the issue here.]

More:

7 Comments | Accuracy, Climate change, climate_change, Environmental protection, Hoaxes, How do we know what we know, Journalism, Newspapers, Science, Texas | Tagged: , , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

Beeville fourth grader disproves global warming?

June 7, 2010

John Mashey alerted me to this news story from the online Beeville Bee-Picayune via mySouTex.com:

R.A. Hall fourth-grader is science national champion

R. A. Hall fourth grader Julisa Castillo, national science fair winner?

Caption from mySouTex: R.A. Hall fourth-grader Julisa Castillo (center) is the 2010 national junior division champion for the National Science Fair. Her project, “Disproving Global Warming,” beat more than 50,000 other projects from students all over the nation. She is pictured with her father, J.R. Castillo (left), and R.A. Hall Principal Martina Villarreal. Read more: mySouTex.com - R A Hall fourth grader is science national champion

R.A. Hall Elementary School fourth-grader Julisa Castillo has been named junior division champion for the 2010 National Science Fair.

Her project, “Disproving Global Warming,” beat more than 50,000 other projects submitted by students from all over the U.S.

Julisa originally entered her project in her school science fair before sending it to the National Science Foundation (NSF) to be judged at the national level.

The NSF panel of judges included former U.S. Vice President Al Gore, 14 recipients of the President’s National Medal of Science, and four former astronauts.

“Before she sent it off, she just had to add more details, citations for her research, and the amount of hours she spent working on it,” said Julisa’s father, J.R. Castillo.

In addition to a plaque, trophy and medal, Julisa has won an all-expenses-paid trip to Space Camp at the U.S. Space & Rocket Center in Huntsville, Ala., which she plans to attend this summer.
Read more: mySouTex.com – R A Hall fourth grader is science national champion

The blog of the North County Times (California) has doubts.  There are signs of hoax.  While the Beeville Independent School District does have an R. A. Hall elementary, the list of winners of last December’s science fair does not include Ms. Castillo.  To go from not placing at the local school to winning the national would be quite a feat!

I suspect an error somewhere, perhaps in the title of the project, or in the understanding of what the title implies.

Most of the obvious hoax signs check out against a hoax:  Beeville exists (improbably Texan as the name may be), R. A. Hall is an elementary school in Beeville ISD.  The principal of R. A. Hall is Martina Villareal.  Beeville has a guy named J. R. Castillo (listed as Julisa’s father in the photo caption), and his photos at the site promoting his music shows photos of a guy who looks a lot like the guy in the photo here.  Most hoaxers wouldn’t go so far for accuracy on details.

Fun little mystery.  I have made inquiries with the newspaper, and hope to follow up with the school.  Stay tuned.  There may be a great little science project somewhere in here.

_____________

See update here: Quick summary, big title, project not quite filling those shoes. I’ve made inquiries at the paper and school district without answers; there’s more to the story, but not much.  A good project with a misleading title, for those who would be misled by a 4th grade science fair project.

19 Comments | Climate change, climate_change, Education, Global warming, Hoaxes, How do we know what we know, Journalism, Newspapers, Science | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

Newseum’s interactive map of today’s headlines

June 2, 2010

This is cool.

Pam Harlow, an old friend from American Airlines, and a map and travel buff, e-mailed me with a link to the Newseum’s interactive headline map.  I can’t get a good screen shot to show you — so you gotta go to their site and see it for yourself.

When it comes up in your browser, it features a map of the continental 48 states, with dots marking major daily newspapers across the nation.  Put your pointer on any of those dots and you see the front page of the newspaper for today from that city.

Using the buttons at the top of the map, you can check newspapers on every continent except Antarctica.

How can I use this in class?

Update:  Here’s a screen shot of the Newseum feature:

Newseum's interactive front-page feature - showing the front page of the Idaho Statesman-Journal of Pocatello, Idaho, on December 15, 2013

Newseum’s interactive front-page feature –  on December 15, 2013

2 Comments | Geography - Economic, Geography - Political, Globalization, Internet, Journalism, Maps, Museums, Newspapers, Teaching, Technology, Technology in the classroom, Travel, World history | Tagged: , , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

Dan Valentine – My Dad’s dream

May 17, 2010

By Dan Valentine

My dad’s dream was to be a reporter. His dad was one, for the Detroit Free Press. He adored his dad. His mom? That’s another story. He loved her, but, well, she was a Roaring Twenties flapper. But I’ll leave that tale for another time.

After the war, my worked for AP/UPI or both in a couple of mid-western towns.

Lincoln, Neb., was one. Got room and board at a minister’s home. Wasn’t much to do in Lincoln back then. After work, he’d buy a pint of bourbon and polish it off alone in his room at night. One problem: What to do with the empties? Couldn’t put ‘em in the garbage. It was a minister’s home, for Christ’s sake! So he hid ‘em under the bed, in chest of drawers, etc.

God knows what the minister thought or did with ‘em after my dad left.

He got a job at the Rapid City Journal in South Dakota–my dad, not the minister. Met my mom. Married. I was born.

My mom’s dad was so taken with my dad’s writing that he offered to support him while he wrote the Great American Novel. But, oh no, my dad wanted to be a newspaperman like his “ol’ man.” He applied for a job at the Denver Post and The Salt Lake Tribune. Got offers from both. Took the Tribune job. Who knows why? He had spent a couple of days in Salt Lake after the war and had gone on his way, unimpressed.

The year was 1949, the month June. I was going on two.

He loved his job, so much so that on the side without pay he began writing a weekly humor column called “Nothing Serious.”

It was so popular he began writing it daily, for free, all the while reporting full-time.

All this time, Jack Paar is writing him letter after letter telling him to come to New York. He’s got an idea for a late-night show.

But, oh no, my dad had a love affair with the newspaper profession.

Cut to: flipping calendar pages. November, December, 1950, 1951 …

An older, experienced reporter, Chinese-American, forget his name, took my dad under his wing. Taught him the business. Once the two were at the Utah State Prison. Some function. Lunch was served. My dad would dip his fork to take a bit and my dad’s mentor would kick him under the table. My dad dipped his fork again. Another kick. He finally got the message. Later, his mentor said, “You don’t know what inmates have put in the food.”

Another time they were covering a story at the Hotel Utah. Governor J. Bracken Lee was there, other VIPs. A luncheon. A waitress came around with a pot of coffee and my dad picked up his cup, which was turned down on the table, to have some. His mentor kicked him under the table again. My dad put the cup back, upside down.

His mentor whispered in my dad’s ear that if you left your cup upside down, it signaled to the waitress that you preferred whiskey–liquor being a major no-no back then). And, damned, if the waitress didn’t make a second trip, after serving those who wanted coffee, with a pitcher of bourbon for those with other tastes.

Cut to: the week of July 26, 1953. My dad calls some law enforcement agency to check a fact for some minor story. Gets put on hold. Gets put back on line and finds himself on a conference call with local police and the feds. At dawn, Arizona state police officers and others were going to raid Short Creek, a settlement of some 400 Mormon fundamentalists. He listens to all the details. Goes to the city editor. Tells him. The city editor goes to the managing editor. Tells him. And the managing editor assigns a reporter to cover the story. Not my dad. Some other reporter!

From Wikipedia: Short Creek. July 26, 1953. The largest mass arrest of polygamists in American history. 263 children were taken into custody. Big, big story, nationally, internationally

The result: My dad never wrote another news story for the Trib. To hell with ‘em! He concentrated on the column.

Where am I going with this? Victor Buono and my dad and their friendship and this website, believe it not.

To be continued …

1 Comment | Dan Valentine, History, Journalism, Newspapers | Tagged: , , , | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

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