Memorial Day 2009 – Fly your flag today

May 25, 2009

Please fly your flag today. Flag at half-staff, from Veterans Affairs Dept

Memorial Day, traditionally observed on May 30, now observed the last Monday in May, honors fallen veterans of wars. Traditionally, family members visit the cemetery where loved ones are interred and leave flowers on the grave.

On Memorial Day itself, flags on poles or masts should be flown at half-staff from sunrise to noon. At noon, flags should be raised to full-staff position.

When posting a flag at half-staff, the flag should be raised to the full-staff position first, with vigor, then slowly lowered to half-staff; when retiring a flag posted at half-staff, it should be raised to the full staff position first, with vigor, and then be slowly lowered. Some people attach black streamers to stationary flags, though this is not officially recognized by the U.S. Flag Code.

Got another week of school? Here’s a quiz about the history of Memorial Day that might make a warm-up, provided by Carolyn Abell writing in the Tifton (Georgia) Gazette:

1. Memorial Day was first officially proclaimed by a general officer. His name was: A. Robert E. Lee; B. John A. Logan; C. Douglas MacArthur D. George Washington.

2. The first state to officially recognize Memorial Day was A. Virginia; B. Rhode Island; C. New York; D. Georgia.

3. The use of poppies to commemorate Memorial Day started in A. 1870 B. 1915 C. 1948; D. 1967.

4. The original date of Memorial Day was A. May 30; B. July 4; C. May 28; D. Nov 11.

5. Which U.S. Senator has tried repeatedly to pass legislation that would restore the traditional day of Memorial Day observance? A. John McCain B. Ted Kennedy C. Saxby Chambliss D. Daniel Inouye.

The answers, again provided by the Tifton Gazette:

OK, now for the answers. General John Logan, national commander of the Grand Army of the Republic, proclaimed May 30, 1968 as Memorial Day in his General Order Number 11, issued on May 5, 1868. The purpose was to honor the dead from both sides in the War Between the States. Subsequently flowers were placed on the graves of both Union and Confederate soldiers in Arlington National Cemetery on May 30 of that year.

New York was the first state to officially recognize the Memorial Day, in 1873. Southern states, though paying tribute to their dead on separate dates, refused to use May 30 as the official date until after World War I, when the holiday was broadened to honor those who died in any war.

In 1915 a woman named Moina Michael, inspired by the poem, “In Flanders Fields,” (by Canadian Colonel John McRae) began wearing red poppies on Memorial Day to honor our nation’s war dead. The tradition grew and even spread to other countries. In 1922 the VFW became the first veterans’ organization to sell the poppies made by disabled veterans as a national effort to raise funds in support of programs for veterans and their dependents. In 1948 the US Post Office issued a red 3-cent stamp honoring Michael for her role in founding the national poppy movement.

As stated above, May 30 was the original Memorial Day. In 1971, with the passage of the national Holiday Act, Congress changed it so that Memorial Day would be celebrated on the last Monday of May. Some citizens feel that turning it into a “three-day weekend” has devalued the importance and significance of this special holiday. In fact, every time a new Congress has convened since 1989, Senator Daniel Inouye of Hawaii has introduced a bill to the Senate calling for the restoration of May 30th as the day to celebrate Memorial Day.

In his 1999 introductory remarks to the bill, Senator Inouye declared:

“Mr. President, in our effort to accommodate many Americans by making the last Monday in May, Memorial Day, we have lost sight of the significance of this day to our nation. Instead of using Memorial Day as a time to honor and reflect on the sacrifices made by Americans in combat, many Americans use the day as a celebration of the beginning of summer. My bill would restore Memorial Day to May 30 and authorize the flag to fly at half mast on that day.

In addition, this legislation would authorize the President to issue a proclamation designating Memorial Day and Veterans Day as days for prayer and ceremonies honoring American veterans. This legislation would help restore the recognition our veterans deserve for the sacrifices they have made on behalf of our nation.” (from the 1999 U.S. Congressional Record).

Flat at half-staff, U.S.Capitol in background - from Flag Bay

Other sources:

Image of flag and U.S. Capitol from Flags Bay.

3 Comments | Citizenship, Flag ceremony, Flag etiquette, Fly your flag today, Heroes, History, Holidays, Patriotism, veterans, War | Tagged: , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

Gun site shoots down flag discussion

May 16, 2009

At The Firing Line.com, you can discuss all things firearms.  But discussions on patriotic displays are “off topic.”

And, by the way, if you are curious about how to properly fold the Ohio state flag, or any other state flag, you’ll find links to the instructions courtesy of Millard Fillmore’s Bathtub, here.

There’s no requirement that a firearms site allow discussions of flag folding and flag display, but cutting off the discussion seems a little curt, to me.

Ohio and U.S. flags fly at a Cleveland courthouse. Photo by Gretchenaro, Scene in Cleveland

Ohio and U.S. flags fly at a Cleveland courthouse. Photo by Gretchenaro, Scene in Cleveland

1 Comment | Flag ceremony, Flag etiquette, Patriotism, Politics, State flag | Tagged: , , , | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

Armed Forces Day 2009 – May 16; fly your flag

May 9, 2009

Armed Forces Day 2009 poster; click on image to download a high-def copy

Armed Forces Day 2009 poster; click on image to download a high-quality copy

Armed Forces Day is one of the score of dates for which federal law suggests we fly our flags.  Armed Forces Day is the third Saturday in May, every year.

Got events scheduled near your home?  Tell us about them in comments, please.

8 Comments | Flag etiquette, Fly your flag today, Heroes, Holidays, Patriotism, veterans | Tagged: , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

Paul Revere’s ride, and the shot ‘heard ’round the world’

April 18, 2009

This is the anniversary of Paul Revere’s ride, which means tomorrow is the anniversary of the battles at Lexington and Concord, Massachusetts, that signaled the beginning of real hostilities of the American Revolution.

Details on the poems here and here — go get them and read them to your children.

The National Guard traces its beginnings to these events (see a description here — scroll down to April 18).

Shot heard round the world - Dominick D'Andrea, National Guard Heritage Gallery

Dominick D'Andrea painting from the National Guard Heritage Series. National Guard caption: At dawn on April 19, 1775, as 700 elite British soldiers marched toward Concord, they fought a brief skirmish with militiamen on Lexington Green, leaving eight colonists dead and nine wounded. The King’s troops marched on, arriving at Concord two hours later. While some troops searched the town for stores of gunpowder and arms, three companies guarded the “North Bridge.” As the British were marching toward Concord, word spread of the fight at Lexington. Alarm bells rang calling out the militia and Minute Men across Middlesex County. Among the units to muster was Colonel James Barrett’s Middlesex County Regiment of Minute Men. Once in formation the regiment moved onto a hill within 500 yards of where the British stood watch at North Bridge. Colonel Barrett, needing to organize additional militia companies, left his command to Major John Buttrick. When smoke appeared in the sky above Concord the Americans wrongly believed the British were burning the town. In response Buttrick decided to move his men toward the town. As the Americans advanced the British pickets fell back across the bridge. The last British unit to cross, the Light Company of the 4th (King’s Own) Foot, stopped to tear up some of the planks to delay the militia advance. Leading the American column was Captain Isaac Davis’s Company of Minute Men from Acton. As they got within 50 yards of the bridge Buttrick shouted at the British to stop tearing up the planks. Suddenly three British shots were fired, killing Davis and another man instantly and wounding a third. Buttrick shouted “Fire! For God’s sake Fire!” and the Minute Men unloosed a ragged but heavy volley. Four out of eight British officers were hit along with seven enlisted men, two of whom died. The British immediately fell back toward the town where they linked up with other Royal troops. Buttrick moved his men across the bridge as the British column began marching back down the road toward Boston. Militiamen gathered along their path and soon began firing from behind trees and stone walls, inflicting an ever-increasing number of casualties. When the exhausted British troops reached Lexington, scene of the fight earlier that morning, they were met by a relief force sent to accompany them back to Boston. However, the Americans did not stop their attacks, inflicting additional losses on the British column before it reached Boston. In total the British suffered almost 300 dead, wounded or missing. Within days an army of nearly 20,000 militiamen from all over New England surrounded the city, effectively putting it under siege. In 1875, on the 100th anniversary of the action at Concord, Daniel Chester French’s Minuteman statue, the symbol of today’s National Guard, was dedicated. As part of the ceremony, Ralph Waldo Emerson’s poem The Concord Hymn was read honoring the men who “fired the shot heard round the world” which began the Revolutionary War. Today’s National Guard is the direct descendent of those militia and Minute Men who stood their ground to protect their homes and freedoms.

National Guardsmen from the U.S. stand under arms around the world today, defending freedom and America’s towns, cities, farms, orchards, forests and wilderness.   Find a Guardsman today (including women), and thank them for their service.

2 Comments | America's founding, American Revolution, Famous Battles, Freedom - Political, History images, Patriotism, Poetry, Turning Points | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

Hang George Washington . . .

March 16, 2009

. . . in your school.

George Washington, the porthole portrait by Rembrandt Peale

George Washington, the "porthole portrait" by Rembrandt Peale

I have a tie from the Save the Children Foundation, a picture drawn by a young child that shows a teacher in a classroom, with portraits of Washington, Lincoln and Teddy Roosevelt on the classroom wall.  Where have those portraits gone?

At Mount Vernon this past weekend, with more than 20 teachers at the seminar I attended, a significant majority of us remembered those portraits in our classrooms.  Most of us don’t have such portraits today.

The Mount Vernon Ladies Association, the group that saved Mount Vernon and operates it today, has  program to donate a large, canvas portrait of Washington to your school, the George Washington Portrait Program.  Two thousand schools have already received the framed portraits, and the program to distribute them, free of charge, to schools, has been extended.

Portraits come with an educational kit — a U.S. flag, flown at General Washington’s home, lesson plans for elementary schools, and a CD-ROM with information for middle and high schools.

Here are the instructions on how to request a portrait for your school.  Here is more information on the program. If you can afford to make a donation, feel free.

Portrait of George Washington, available free to schools, displayed on the grounds of Mount Vernon. Photo, Mount Vernon Ladies Association

Portrait of George Washington, available free to schools, displayed on the grounds of Mount Vernon. Photo, Mount Vernon Ladies Association

Leave a Comment » | Art, George Washington, History, History and art, History images, Patriotism, Presidents | Tagged: , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

Whiskey and Cigar Day 2008: Churchill and Twain

November 30, 2008

Encore Post:  From 2007; alas, things at the Texas State Board of Education have gotten no better.

Mark Twain, afloat

November 30 is the birthday of Mark Twain (1835), and Winston Churchill (1874).

Twain had a comment on recent actions at the Texas Education Agency:

In the first place God made idiots. This was for practice. Then He made School Boards.

– Following the Equator; Pudd’nhead Wilson’s New Calendar

The Nobel literature committees were slow; Twain did not win a Nobel in Literature; he died in 1910. Churchill did win a Nobel Prize in Literature, in 1953.

Both men were aficionados of good whiskey and good cigars. Both men suffered from depression in old age.

Both men made a living writing, early in their careers as newspaper correspondents. One waged wars of a kind the other campaigned against. Both were sustained by their hope for the human race, against overwhelming evidence that such hope was sadly misplaced.

churchill-time-cover-man-of-the-year-1941.jpg

Both endured fantastic failures that would have killed other people, and both rebounded.

Both men are worth study.

Twain, on prisons versus education: “Every time you stop a school, you will have to build a jail. What you gain at one end you lose at the other. It’s like feeding a dog on his own tail. It won’t fatten the dog.” – Speech, November 23, 1900

Churchill on the evil men and nations do:

“No One Would Do Such Things”

“So now the Admiralty wireless whispers through the ether to the tall masts of ships, and captains pace their decks absorbed in thought. It is nothing. It is less than nothing. It is too foolish, too fantastic to be thought of in the twentieth century. Or is it fire and murder leaping out of the darkness at our throats, torpedoes ripping the bellies of half-awakened ships, a sunrise on a vanished naval supremacy, and an island well-guarded hitherto, at last defenceless? No, it is nothing. No one would do such things. Civilization has climbed above such perils. The interdependence of nations in trade and traffic, the sense of public law, the Hague Convention, Liberal principles, the Labour Party, high finance, Christian charity, common sense have rendered such nightmares impossible. Are you quite sure? It would be a pity to be wrong. Such a mistake could only be made once—once for all.”

—1923, recalling the possibility of war between France and Germany after the Agadir Crisis of 1911, in The World Crisis,vol. 1, 1911-1914, pp. 48-49.

Image of Twain aboard ship – origin unknown. Image of Winston S. Churchill, Time Magazine’s Man of the Year for 1941, copyright 1941 by Time Magazine.

More on Mark Twain

More on Winston Churchill

Orson Welles, with Dick Cavett, on Churchill, his wit, humor and grace (tip of the old scrub brush to the Churchill Centre):

6 Comments | Biography, Books, Good Quotes, Great Speeches, Heroes, History, Journalism, Literature, Mark Twain, Patriotism, Peace, Quotes, Travel, Winston Churchill, World War II | Tagged: , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

Fly your flag today: Columbus Day

October 13, 2008

Fly your U.S. flag today. Fly it to honor Columbus’s discovery of the Americas.

The second Monday in October is celebrated as Columbus Day, a federal holiday (though not widely honored in private enterprise).  Columbus made landfall in the Americas for the first time on October 12, 1492, 516 years ago.

John Vanderlyn Oil on canvas, 12 x 18 Commissioned 1836/1837; placed 1847 Rotunda Christopher Columbus is shown landing in the West Indies, on an island that the natives called Guanahani and he named San Salvador, on October 12, 1492. He raises the royal banner, claiming the land for his Spanish patrons, and stands bareheaded, with his hat at his feet, in honor of the sacredness of the event. The captains of the Niña and Pinta follow, carrying the banner of Ferdinand and Isabella. The crew displays a range of emotions, some searching for gold in the sand. Natives watch from behind a tree. John Vanderlyn (1775-1852) had studied with Gilbert Stuart and was the first American painter to be trained in Paris, where he worked on this canvas for ten years with the help of assistants.

John Vanderlyn, Oil on canvas, 12′ x 18′ – Commissioned 1836/1837; placed 1847 in the Rotunda of the Capitol. Christopher Columbus is shown landing in the West Indies, on an island that the natives called Guanahani and he named San Salvador, on October 12, 1492. He raises the royal banner, claiming the land for his Spanish patrons, and stands bareheaded, with his hat at his feet, in honor of the sacredness of the event. The captains of the Niña and Pinta follow, carrying the banner of Ferdinand and Isabella. The crew displays a range of emotions, some searching for gold in the sand. Natives watch from behind a tree. John Vanderlyn (1775-1852) had studied with Gilbert Stuart and was the first American painter to be trained in Paris, where he worked on this canvas for ten years with the help of assistants.

 

11 Comments | 1492, Christopher Columbus, Education, Flag etiquette, Fly your flag today, History, Patriotism | Tagged: , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

“The War Prayer” of Mark Twain

September 3, 2008

 

Here’s Twain’s stuff.

It’s largely forgotten now, especially in history texts in high schools.  After the Spanish-American War, when the U.S. wrested several territories from Spain, including Guam, Cuba, Puerto Rico and the Philippines, the U.S. quickly got mired in one of the original guerrilla wars in the Philippines.  It took 15 years, but the U.S. finally put down the rebellion — 15 brutal, bloody years.  The conduct of that war shocked many people, including Mark Twain.

This piece was written partly in response to that war.

Many Americans, like Twain, who questioned the war, in turn had their patriotism questioned.  Why wouldn’t they get on board with the war, and kill off those Filipino rebels? the critics asked.

Here’s a film in two parts, a stunning production, perhaps by Markos Kounalakis (who uploaded the thing); go to the film’s website for a copy of the text.

Part I:

Part II:

 

 

 

4 Comments | Dissent, History, Literature, Patriotism, Peace, Politics, Spanish American War, War, World history | Tagged: , , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

Need your help: Call Bush, tell him to let veterans vote

August 14, 2008

The thing with the flag? That was sorta funny. It was meant as humor.

This isn’t funny: The Bush administration is actively working to stop injured and ill veterans in Veterans Administration facilities from registering to vote.

These actions are most likely violations of the Voting Rights Act (under Section 2, or Section 11 – not my area of expertise, alas), but don’t expect Bush’s Justice Department to prosecute. These actions violate the VA’s own rules on helping veterans to vote. More pragmatically, there isn’t time for a big fight before the election. Veterans will be stopped from voting unless there is action now.

There is an easier, simpler solution — though we’re late. Bush should just rescind the order, encourage all veterans to vote, and help voter registration drives and attempts to get absentee ballots injured and ill veterans in VA facilities.

Susan Byseiwicz is Connecticut’s Secretary of State, the person charged with making sure the state’s voting system works. Among other things, she tries to get people to register to vote:

WHAT is the secretary of Veterans Affairs thinking? On May 5, the department led by James B. Peake issued a directive that bans nonpartisan voter registration drives at federally financed nursing homes, rehabilitation centers and shelters for homeless veterans. As a result, too many of our most patriotic American citizens — our injured and ill military veterans — may not be able to vote this November.

I have witnessed the enforcement of this policy. On June 30, I visited the Veterans Affairs Hospital in West Haven, Conn., to distribute information on the state’s new voting machines and to register veterans to vote. I was not allowed inside the hospital.

Outside on the sidewalk, I met Martin O’Nieal, a 92-year-old man who lost a leg while fighting the Nazis in the mountains of Northern Italy during the harsh winter of 1944. Mr. O’Nieal has been a resident of the hospital since 2007. He wanted to vote last year, but he told me that there was no information about how to register to vote at the hospital and the nurses could not answer his questions about how or where to cast a ballot.

Just a minor glitch, an information vacuum waiting to be filled? Go back and reread the last sentence in her second paragraph: “I was not allowed inside the hospital,” to register veterans to vote, she said.

Connecticut’s attorney general, Richard Blumenthal, and I wrote to [Veterans Affairs] Secretary [James B.] Peake in July to request that elections officials be let inside the department’s facilities to conduct voter education and registration. Our request was denied.

The department offers two reasons to justify its decision. First, it claims that voter registration drives are disruptive to the care of its patients. This is nonsense. Veterans can fill out a voter registration card in about 90 seconds.

Second, the department claims that its employees cannot help patients register to vote because the Hatch Act forbids federal workers from engaging in partisan political activities. But this interpretation of the Hatch Act is erroneous. Registering people to vote is not partisan activity.

If the department does not want to burden its staff, there are several national organizations with a long history of nonpartisan advocacy for veterans and their right to vote that are eager to help, as are elected officials like me.

The department has placed an illegitimate obstacle in the way of election officials across the country and, more important, in the way of veterans who want to vote.

Read the rest of her plea, which was carried in the New York Times last Monday, August 11.

And then take action. Bills have already been filed in Congress to force the Department of Veterans Affairs to allow veterans in its hospitals to register and vote. Frankly, time is running out. Many of these veterans will have to vote absentee — they need to be registered and have about a month to get the ballots and mail them back. There are 82 days to the election. Time is short.

So: Call George Bush and tell him to let veterans in hospitals register, and vote. George’s phone number for comments is 202-456-1111; if for any reason that does not work for you, try the general switchboard at 202-456-1414. Tell Bush I said to say “Howdy.”

The White House won’t put you through to George, but they will tally your opinion. If they give you a hard time, ask them: Why is George Bush afraid of the votes of wounded and ill veterans?

Ready to do more to support our veterans? Call the Secretary of Veterans Affairs: [::grumble:: Just try to find a general phone number for VA. Still looking. It appears the Secretary of Veterans Affairs doesn’t give a damn about veterans — they can’t call him, you can’t call him either. Still looking.]

Or you may write Sec. Peake at his office:

The Honorable James B. Peake
Secretary
U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs
810 Vermont Avenue NW
Washington, DC 20420

I do not recommend on-line messages, since they clog a bureaucracy that should be helping veterans, but VA does not make it easy to contact them. If you wish to write an electronic message to the VA, try here.

“The federal government should be doing everything it can to support our nation’s veterans who have served us so courageously. There can be no justification for any barrier that impedes the ability of veterans to participate in democracy’s most fundamental act, the vote,” Sec. of State Byseiwicz said.

Absolutely.

This is no small group. Veterans in hospitals are numerous enough to swing elections in many districts, and nationally. They fought for our nation, and they deserve to have their voices heard, and their votes registered.

In her request, [California Secretary of State Debra] Bowen cited a 1994 executive order by President Bill Clinton requiring federal agencies to undertake the responsibility of registration when asked to do so by state election officials. A spokeswoman for Ms. Bowen said she was considering litigation.

More than 100,000 people reside for a month or longer at the V.A. campuses nationally, a number that has grown in recent years as more soldiers return wounded from the war.

In California, the federal Department of Veterans Affairs runs eight major medical centers and 11 nursing homes that provide care for more than 200,000 veterans.

What would George Washington do?

More resources:

Tip of the old scrub brush to Ed Brayton at Dispatches From the Culture Wars.

2 Comments | Citizenship, Civil Rights, Democracy, Elections, Government, History, Patriotism, Politics, veterans, Vietnam, Voting Rights Act, World War I, World War II | Tagged: , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

Proof Bush has America backwards

August 13, 2008

Photographic proof that George Bush has America backwards. (Avert your Cub Scout’s eyes — he shouldn’t see his president doing that to the U.S. flag. Your Cub Scout knows that the union should always be displayed to its own right — to Bush’s right, the opposite of how he’s holding it here.)

President Bush displays U.S. flag backwards, at Beijing Olympics. Ezra Shaw/Getty Images

President Bush displays U.S. flag backwards, at Beijing Olympics. Ezra Shaw/Getty Images

Worse, there’s more:

But, by God! He’s wearing his lapel pin! Wearing the pin makes one immune to the rules of respectful flag display, one would assume, from the complaints of Sen. Barack Obama’s not wearing the lapel pin, and the remarkable silence from those same people about Bush’s many insults to the flag.

George Bush makes the case: We don’t need a Constitutional Amendment to make flag desecration illegal. We need Americans who pay attention to flag etiquette, instead.

Tip of the old scrub brush to Larry Perez, and to BuzzFlash, “The Diplomatic Decathlon: Bush’s Marathon of Olympic Blunders”

8 Comments | Flag etiquette, Patriotism, Politics, Presidents | Tagged: , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

Planning for an end to the conflict: Whatever happened to the U.S. Institute of Peace?

August 11, 2008

Whatever happened to the U.S. Institute of Peace?

I asked that question as I read a post over at Jon Taplin’s Blog, “The Cost of Empire Conversion.”

Here’s the website for USIP. Here’s a video introduction:

Remember the old gospel tune, “Ain’t gonna study war no more?”   Time to sing it louder, and implement the idea.

Leave a Comment » | Education, History, Patriotism, Peace, Politics, War | Tagged: , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

Have a glorious Independence Day

July 4, 2008

Fireworks on the Mall, Washington, D.C.

July 4, 2006

Iwo Jima Memorial in the foreground; Washington Monument in background

1 Comment | Flag ceremony, Flag etiquette, Fly your flag today, Patriotism | Tagged: , , | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

Independence Day! Fly your flag

July 3, 2008

Remember to fly the flag on July 4, 2008, the 232nd anniversary of the Declaration of Independence. (Postcard above, from 1907, from collection of James R. Heintze)

Flags may be flown sun-up to sun-down. The U.S. flag should be run up the pole quickly, and be left to fly unfettered in the breeze. The flag may be left flying after sundown, if it is lighted.

Resources:

Leave a Comment » | Flag etiquette, Fly your flag today, Freedom - Political, History, History and art, History images, Patriotism | Tagged: , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

June 14 – Flag Day

June 14, 2008

Did you fly your flag today?  Even without my reminding you?  Good!

Norman Rockwell painting, Scout saluting the flag

Painting by Norman Rockwell, Scout saluting the flag.

Flag Day celebrates the date of the first resolution passing the Continental Congress designating Stars and Stripes as the flag of the soon-to-be U.S., on June 14, 1777.

Leave a Comment » | Flag etiquette, Fly your flag today, History, Patriotism | Tagged: , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

“Network of the Lincoln Bicentennial”

June 10, 2008

You’ve got to love C-SPAN. Commercial television networks spend billions purchasing rights to be the sole broadcaster of sporting events, the Superbowl, the World Series, the NBA championships, the NCAA basketball championships, the Olympics.

What’s a money poor, creativity- and content-rich public affairs cable channel to do? Well, gee, there’s the bicentennial of Abraham Lincoln’s birth coming up in February 2009 . . .:

Meet C-SPAN, “the network of the Lincoln Bicentennial.”

Note the site, set your video recorders (digital or not — just capture the stuff). C-SPAN plans monthly broadcasts on Lincoln and the times, plus special broadcasts on certain events — November 19, the 145th anniversary of the Gettysburg Address, for example.

Of particular value to students and teachers, C-SPAN offers a long menu of links to sites about Lincoln, and to original speeches and documents (DBQ material anyone?).


War with Mexico

House Divided

Lincoln-Douglas Debates

·1st Debate: Transcript | Video

·2nd Debate: Transcript | Video

·3rd Debate: Transcript | Video

·4th Debate: Transcript | Video

·5th Debate: Transcript | Video

·6th Debate: Transcript | Video

·7th Debate: Transcript | Video

Cooper Union Speech

Farewell Address

First Inaugural

Second Inaugural

Gettysburg Address

Last Address

Good on ’em. C-SPAN leads the way again.

Teachers, bookmark that site. Are you out for the summer? U.S. history teachers have a couple of months to mine those resources, watch the broadcasts, and watch and capture the archived videos, to prepare for bell-ringers, warm-ups, and lesson plans.

What will your classes do for the Lincoln Bicentennial? Will that collide with your plans for the Darwin bicentennial?

1 Comment | 1861-1865, Abraham Lincoln, Biography, Civil War, Education, Freedom - Political, History, History audio sources, History images, History video sources, Lesson plans, On-line education, On-line learning, Patriotism, Politics, Presidents, Slavery, Teaching, Technology, Technology in the classroom, Television | Tagged: , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

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