CREDIT: Mauldin, Bill, artist. “Another such victory and I am undone” Copyright 1962, Field Enterprises, Inc. Prints and Photographs Division of the Library of Congress.
Spread the word; friends don't allow friends to repeat history.
THE rays are diffuse, but the specks of light are unmistakable. Share prices are up sharply. Even after slipping early this week, two-thirds of the 42 stockmarkets that The Economist tracks have risen in the past six weeks by more than 20%. Different economic indicators from different parts of the world have brightened. China’s economy is picking up. The slump in global manufacturing seems to be easing. Property markets in America and Britain are showing signs of life, as mortgage rates fall and homes become more affordable. Confidence is growing. A widely tracked index of investor sentiment in Germany has turned positive for the first time in almost two years.
* * * * * * * * *
But, welcome as it is, optimism contains two traps, one obvious, the other more subtle. The obvious trap is that confidence proves misplaced—that the glimmers of hope are misinterpreted as the beginnings of a strong recovery when all they really show is that the rate of decline is slowing. The subtler trap, particularly for politicians, is that confidence and better news create ruinous complacency. Optimism is one thing, but hubris that the world economy is returning to normal could hinder recovery and block policies to protect against a further plunge into the depths.
The cover almost says it all, doesn’t it? Week in and week out, The Economist has great covers, a phase of newsstand-oriented journalism that I hope never goes away, regardless the medium.
Spread the word; friends don't allow friends to repeat history.
But I also want to call attention to this brilliant graphic — a sort of photographic political cartoon, and it’s quietly, subtly, savage:
What things in this photograph were paid for by taxes?
Oh, there are a couple of inaccuracies — the phone lines were probably paid for by the telephone company, but eminent domain was used to get the easements in many cases. (Who did the photo and the captioning? Anyone know?)
A quick snippet of learning from my stay at Mount Vernon:
How many places are named after Washington? How many schools?
At the relatively new museum here I found a display that notes how Americans have honored our First President by naming things after him:
26 mountains
740 schools
155 places (the exhibit said “155 cities and counties,” but the map also showed the State of Washington)
(All of this comes without the aid of a George Washington Legacy Project to inflate his importance and the love of Americans for his work!)
George Washington can still lay claim to his friend Richard Lee’s eulogy, as “first in the hearts of his countrymen.”
I found the display on place names on the way out of the Education Center — a place designed to help visiting teachers learn about resources available for classroom use.
Of course the group works to help teachers who can’t visit at the moment, too. To that end they’ve published online a series of lesson plans developed by the George Washington Teachers’ Institute, a summer residency program that provides professional development.
I think it was Mark Twain who said a lie can get around the world twice before the truth has got its boots on (feel free to correct me on that if you have a good source).
Whoever said it, it was right.
Now, we see that a mined quote can do the same thing as a whole lie.
Now I ask you, Dear Reader, does that sound like old Give-’em-hell Harry, the original straight talker? Did Harry Truman really urge the use of confusion, when persuasion fails?
Michael Kountoris, Eleftheros Typos, 1st place in the Lurie/UN Cartoon Awards, 2008
Of the 13 cartoons, 1st, 2nd, 3rd and honorable mentions, at least six touch on environmental topics. Is this a representation of a the cartoons published in the past year?
All the cartoons honored deserve your viewing — go see them here.
The award is offered annually by the UN Correspondents Association in honor of Ranan Lurie, who probably still is the most widely syndicated cartoonist in history. A sample of Lurie’s work, below the fold.
Only four months after its completion, the Tacoma Narrows Bridge in Washington state, the third longest suspension bridge in the world at the time, collapsed. No one was injured.
A cartoon from April 1850 shows how raw were some of the emotions among national leaders, especiallyi n the Senate. It illustrates an incident that occurred April 17, 1850, when Sen. Henry S. Foote of Mississippi drew a pistol on Missouri’s Sen. Thomas Hart Benton. Elektratig used the cartoon to illustrate his post; it’s good enough to repeat here.
Cartoon by Edward Williams Clay, from the Library of Congress Collection. LOC Summary: A somewhat tongue-in-cheek dramatization of the moment during the heated debate in the Senate over the admission of California as a free state when Mississippi senator Henry S. Foote drew a pistol on Thomas Hart Benton of Missouri. In the cartoon Benton (center) throws open his coat and defiantly states, "Get out of the way, and let the assassin fire! let the scoundrel use his weapon! I have no arm's! I did not come here to assassinate!" He is attended by two men, one of them North Carolina senator Willie P. Mangum (on the left). Foote, restrained from behind by South Carolina's Andrew Pickens Butler and calmed by Daniel Stevens Dickinson of New York (to whom he later handed over the pistol), still aims his weapon at Benton saying, "I only meant to defend myself!" In the background Vice President Fillmore, presiding, wields his gavel and calls for order. Behind Foote another senator cries, "For God's sake Gentlemen Order!" To the right of Benton stand Henry Clay and (far right) Daniel Webster. Clay puns, "It's a ridiculous matter, I apprehend there is no danger on foot!" Visitors in the galleries flee in panic.
Real history: Stranger than you can imagine.
Spread the word; friends don't allow friends to repeat history.
George Santayana is best known as a historian. He’s famous for his observation on the importance of studying history to understand it, and getting it right: “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” (See citation in right column of the blog.)
Steve Greenberg is a historian cartoonist whose work is published in the Ventura County (California) Star. He offers a Santayana-esque analysis of economics positions of presidential candidates.
Steve Greenberg, published in the Ventura County Star
Click on the thumbnail for a larger version.
Steve Greenberg, Ventura County Star, via Cagle Comics
Greenberg has compressed into 33 words and 5 images a rather complex argument in this year’s presidential campaign.
Is Greenberg right? Do you see why Boss Tweed feared Thomas Nast’s cartoons more than he feared the reporters and editorial writers?
This election campaign we may be able to get the best analysis and commentary from cartoonists. Same as always. Teachers: Are you stockpiling cartoons for use through the year in government, economics, and history?
Note to Cagle cartoons: I think I’m in fair use bounds on this. In any case, I wish you would create an option for bloggers, and an option for teachers who may reuse cartoons year after year. I’ve tried to contact you to secure rights for cartoons in the past, and I don’t get responses. Complain away in comments if you have a complaint, but let us know how we can expose cartoonists to broader audiences and use these materials in our classrooms for less than our entire teacher salary.
Spread the word; friends don't allow friends to repeat history.
Goodnight Moon by Margaret Wise Brown and Clement Hurd is one of my favorite books of all time. I first read it when I was in college, but it was a toddler favorite of both of our sons, and it rapidly became one of mine, too. Reading it to them at bedtime helped calm them down and put them to sleep. There is from the book a feeling of safety, of warmth, coziness, and love. I may have liked reading it to them more than they liked being read to.
With our youngest off to college this fall, I wish there were some book to give them that would reproduce those good feelings of nearly 20 years ago.
::sigh::
Here’s what we have instead. Goodnight Bush.
This image is scary enough (see the bugging microphone? the burning ballot box? the tilted scales of justice? the polluting smokestacks?).
Cover of Goodnight Bush
This is the one that makes the more serious statement:
Goodnight human rights, everywhere
A story on this book at NPR was the “most e-mailed” last week.
Update, August 6, 2008: I bought the book just over a week ago – it’s better than the glowing reviews say it is. It’s more incisive, better drawn, and more thought provoking that you thought possible. American President’s Blog also talks about the book. It won’t make you seep easier, but the laughs may make you live longer.
Today CBS Evening News and other outlets report some enterprising building owner in London who recognized Banksy’s work, preserved it, and has auctioned it away on eBay. It fetched $407,000 US. (CBS video here)
The work, depicting an artist in old-fashioned clothes putting the finishing touches on the word “BANKSY” spray-painted in red, was scrawled on a wall on the Portobello Road in the west London district of Notting Hill.
It was offered for sale on the e-Bay auction site and went for 208,100 pounds after attracting 69 bids.
The winner of the auction may well get the painting and the wall it is on, but they will have to calculate how to get the whole work delivered and pay to replace the wall.
“I am selling the wall because I can’t really justify owning a piece of art worth as much as it is,” said Luti Fagbenle, the owner of the property on which the graffiti is sprayed.
A political cartoon changed the life of one London building owner.
Spread the word; friends don't allow friends to repeat history.
Thomas Nast helped bring down the crooks at Tammany Hall with cartoons. Boss Tweed, the chief antagonist of Nast, crook and leader of the Tammany Gang, understood that Nast’s drawings could do him in better than just hard hitting reporting — the pictures were clear to people who couldn’t read.
But a cartoon has to get to an audience to have an effect.
Here’s one below, a comment on the security wall being built in Israel, that got very little circulation in the west at Christmas time. Can you imagine the impact had this drawing run in newspapers in Europe, the U.S., and Canada?
It’s a mashup of a famous oil painting related to the Christian Nativity, from a London-based artist who goes by the name Banksy. (Warning: Banksy pulls no punches; views shown are quite strong, often very funny, always provocative, generally safe for work unless you work for an authoritarian like Dick Cheney who wants no counter opinions.)
Or, until that account is unsuspended by the forces supporting Donald Trump: Follow @FillmoreWhite, the account of the Millard Fillmore White House Library
We've been soaking in the Bathtub for several months, long enough that some of the links we've used have gone to the Great Internet in the Sky.
If you find a dead link, please leave a comment to that post, and tell us what link has expired.
Thanks!
Retired teacher of law, economics, history, AP government, psychology and science. Former speechwriter, press guy and legislative aide in U.S. Senate. Former Department of Education. Former airline real estate, telecom towers, Big 6 (that old!) consultant. Lab and field research in air pollution control.
My blog, Millard Fillmore's Bathtub, is a continuing experiment to test how to use blogs to improve and speed up learning processes for students, perhaps by making some of the courses actually interesting. It is a blog for teachers, to see if we can use blogs. It is for people interested in social studies and social studies education, to see if we can learn to get it right. It's a blog for science fans, to promote good science and good science policy. It's a blog for people interested in good government and how to achieve it.
BS in Mass Communication, University of Utah
Graduate study in Rhetoric and Speech Communication, University of Arizona
JD from the National Law Center, George Washington University
Posted by Ed Darrell 
Millard Fillmore's Bathtub 