Just trying to keep the history wires warm while we’re testing in the cold, a bit of olla podrida.
Today in history? For January 10:
From the National Archives: “This campaign medallion from the 1856 presidential election is a predecessor to the candidate bumper sticker. The small hole punched at the top would have allowed a person to sew the medallion to a jacket or coat, or string it on a chain. Pictured in the center of the medallion is former President Millard Fillmore. “
Fillmore was nominated by the American Party, also known as the “Know-Nothing” Party, as their Presidential candidate. The Know-Nothing party was staunchly anti-immigrant and Protestant, and feared the large number of German and Irish Catholics who were coming into the United States at the time.
This medallion is one of many campaign-related objects from the Truman Library. When it first opened in 1957, President Truman wanted the Library to become a general center for the study of the presidency, not just focused on him. As a result, the Library actively sought out presidential-related objects to collect. The Library will be featuring more campaign history throughout this 2012 election year.
Compared to many other Southern states, Florida saw little military action. Strategically important coastal cities, such as Jacksonville and Saint Augustine, switched hands between the North and South but the interior of the state remained under Confederate control. When Lee surrendered in 1865, Tallahassee was the only Southern capital east of the Mississippi that was still held by rebel forces.
Clay Bennett, award-winning cartoonist for the Chattanooga Times-Free Press
Bennett earned honorable mentions before in this competition. His distinctive, almost simple style, and his sharp and incisive wit, make Bennett a great cartoonist, one of my favorites for a long time.
His 2011 Lurie Award winner depicted the breakdown in Palestinian/Israeli peace talks:
Clay Bennett's Lurie/UN Award winning cartoon, Chattanooga Times-Free Press; inspired by Escher, perhaps, it shows the difficulty in even getting started any talks on Mideast peace.
I especially like the ambidextrous feature: The cartoon works upside down, too.
Congratulations, Mr. Bennett, and all the winners in the 2011 Lurie/UN Cartoon Awards.
About genocide and other political issues that lead to the deaths of tens of thousands, or hundreds of thousands of people: We keep saying “never again!” When is never? There is famine today in Somalia.
This week, the U.N. declared a state of famine in parts of Somalia. Need to Know speaks with Adrian Edwards of the U.N.’s Refugee Agency about the unfolding humanitarian crisis in the region.
Rollback Malaria (RBM) was established in 1998 in part to reinvigorate the worldwide fight against malaria, and in part to facilitate the negotiations for what became the Stockholm Convention, the Persistent Organic Pesticides Treaty of 2001.
That’s about the time the ungodly assault on WHO and Rachel Carson started, by hysterical DDT advocates. We now know that Roger Bate, Richard Tren, Donald Roberts and their comrades in pens are stuck in that 1998 fight.
Here’s a short account, from RBM, about just what happened:
The DDT Controversy
In 1999 the RBM Secretariat was called upon to help resolve a controversy emerging from intergovernmental negotiations to establish an international environmental treaty. At the centre of this controversy was DDT, former hero of the malaria eradication campaign and current totemic villain of the environmental movement. The treaty being negotiated was intended to eliminate the production and use of twelve persistent organic pollutants. DDT, still used for malaria control in over 20 countries, was included among ‘the dirty dozen’ chemicals slated for elimination, eliciting a strong reaction from public health activists and malaria specialists who claimed that its elimination would result in unacceptable increases in malaria morbidity and mortality. Environmental specialists and others claimed that environmentally friendly alternatives to DDT, although more expensive, could easily be deployed to guard against such a negative impact.
The controversy over the role of DDT in malaria vector control and the dangers posed to the environment escalated and attracted considerable media attention. The controversy was perpetuated in part because of a relatively weak evidence base on the human toxicity of DDT, the cost-effectiveness of proposed alternatives, and the probable impact of public health use of DDT (compared to agricultural use) on the environment. Resolution was also hampered by the relative lack of public health expertise among the Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee delegates, who were primarily active in the fields of foreign and environmental policy.
The challenges presented to the RBM Secretariat in responding to the controversy were many and varied. They included: evaluation of the evidence base and the drafting of policy guidance (a WHO normative role); a major communications effort; and the establishment of new cross-sectoral partnerships and working relationships. In the process, RBM formed new and highly effective ‘partnerships’ or ‘working relations’ with the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), the US Environmental Protection Agency, the environmental policy apparatus of core RBM partners, as well as a variety of health and environmental NGOs. RBM conducted country and informal expert consultations and convened and chaired a special working group on DDT which was able to establish a position on the use of the insecticide in public health and the process for evaluating and moving to alternatives. The weight of WHO’s technical authority contributed greatly toward establishing the credibility of the working group. Information about the treaty negotiations and the WHO position on DDT was disseminated to health specialists via the WHO regional networks and to treaty focal points via UNEP.
The RBM Secretariat led the WHO delegation to all meetings of the Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee and prepared information and media events for each, supporting the participation of health/malaria specialists from a number of countries. The RBM Secretariat also served as the media focal point on malaria and DDT and provided interviews and information to all major media, as well as presentations to professional meetings and interest groups.
RBM’s objectives throughout this process were:
to establish consensus on the present and future role of DDT and alternatives in malaria control;
to encourage greater involvement of public health specialists in country-level discussions about the treaty and in country delegations to the negotiating sessions;
to provide information to negotiators and others that would reduce controversy and result in a win-win situation for public health and the environment (in which the longer term goal of DDT elimination is achieved through strengthened, more robust malaria control);
to benefit from the media attention to inform the public about malaria; and
to mobilize resources to support malaria control from outside the health sector.
All of these objectives have been met and the final treaty, known as the ‘Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants’ provides for the continued public health use of DDT and international assistance for the development and implementation of alternatives.
Resources to support the initial work of the RBM Secretariat were provided by environmental agencies/offices. In addition, the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) and the WHO Regional Office for the Americas (AMRO) and most recently the WHO Regional Office for Africa (AFRO) have been awarded project development grants from the Global Environment Facility (GEF) to promote regional efforts to strengthen malaria control and reduce reliance on DDT.
“This illustrates how with proper medication, the most lethal condition in Africa can be reduced to bad ten days instead of a death sentence.”
Sometimes it may pay to remember that malaria is disease caused by a parasite who must live part of its life cycle in humans, and part of its life in mosquitoes. Killing mosquitoes only works until the next susceptible mosquito comes along to bite an infected human.
The goal of malaria prevention and eradication campaigns generally is to cure the humans, so regardless how many mosquitoes may be in a given location and regardless how many people they may bite, there is no malaria pool for the mosquitoes to draw from, to spread to other humans.
To beat malaria, we need to prevent the spread of the disease. At some point that requires providing quick and accurate diagnoses of which parasites cause the infection, and a complete and completed regimen of therapeutic pharmaceuticals to actuall cure the human victims. DDT is mostly a bystander in that crucial part of the fight.
Clooney was in Sudan in December to work with Google and the UN on a human rights project that combines satellite imagery analysis and field reports to prevent a new war from occurring in the troubled country.
“We want to let potential perpetrators of genocide and other war crimes know that we’re watching, the world is watching,” he said in a statement at the time. “War criminals thrive in the dark. It’s a lot harder to commit mass atrocities in the glare of the media spotlight.”
Do you consider it odd that Clooney’s contracting malaria might gather more news in western outlets than his actual trip to Sudan, to call attention to the campaign against genocide?
Spread the word; friends don't allow friends to repeat history.
I almost never remember on time: September 8 is International Literacy Day, a day designated by the United Nations to celebrate literacy.
From the Dag Hammerskjöld Library:
Literacy is a cause for celebration since there are now close to four billion literate people in the world. However, literacy for all – children, youth and adults – is still an unaccomplished goal and an ever moving target. A combination of ambitious goals, insufficient and parallel efforts, inadequate resources and strategies, and continued underestimation of the magnitude and complexity of the task accounts for this unmet goal. Lessons learnt over recent decades show that meeting the goal of universal literacy calls not only for more effective efforts but also for renewed political will and for doing things differently at all levels – locally, nationally and internationally.
In its resolution A/RES/56/116, the General Assembly proclaimed the ten year period beginning 1 January 2003 the United Nations Literacy Decade. In resolution A/RES/57/166, the Assembly welcomed the International Plan of Action for the Decade and decided that Unesco should take a coordinating role in activities undertaken at the international level within the framework of the Decade.
The additional resources links on this page are provided for information purposes only and do not necessarily represent an endorsement by the United Nations.
It’s fascinating to me that activities on International Literacy Day seem to be noted in out-of-the-way U.S. newspapers, and even there not much. Do Americans care about literacy, really?
I half expect the Texas State Board of Education to pass a resolution condeming literacy, since the UN worries about it.
Spread the word; friends don't allow friends to repeat history.
The United Nations Correspondents Association and the UN Society of Writers and Artists announced the winners of the 2009 Ranan Lurie/UN Cartoon Awards earlier this month. First place, and $10,000, went to Robert Ariail, cartooning in The State.
Ariail’s winner is a clever depiction of a commuter making the most of advertising for $4.00/gallon gasoline, becoming a bicycle commuter in the process.
Robert Ariail's First Place cartoon, 2009 Ranan Lurie UN Cartoon Award competition ($10,000)
Ariail's self-portrait -- he is without portfolio at the moment
Hey! Mr. Murdoch! Want to do some public service and promote your news organizations? Hire Ariail, and some of the other laid-off cartoonists whose visual opinions we sorely need in these complex and too-somber times. (Anyone else who owns a newspaper, or edits one, should consider doing a favor for cartooning and the public, too.)
Our Bill of Rights is good; have you ever really read the UDHR and compared? Go look, see what you agree with, or whether you have any disputes.
sbh explains:
10 December is Human Rights Day, commemorating the adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights by the UN General Assembly on this day in 1948. And how appropriate it is to the season. Consider Article 1:
All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.
Damn right. In a way it’s sad that the remaining twenty-nine articles have to exist at all, spelling out that people should not be tortured (Article 4) or enslaved (Article 5), or deprived of employment (Article 23) or leisure (Article 24) or education (Article 26). Shouldn’t this all go without saying? Apparently not; when the nation that prides itself on being the city on the hill and the beacon of hope for the world descends to torture and degradation of human beings for political ends all bets are off.
Comparison of the BoR and UDHR makes a good discussion assignment, and could probably be turned into a DBQ.
Spread the word; friends don't allow friends to repeat history.
Press release from the malaria-fighting group Nothing But Nets:
Nothing But Nets Teams Up With Boy Scouts of America to Fight Malaria
Boy Scouts of America Celebrate 100 Years of Service by Extending Reach Outside Nation’s Borders; Millions of Scouts Across the U.S., including Distinguished Eagle Scout Bill Gates Sr., Spread the Word on Malaria Prevention.
Detroit, MI (Vocus/PRWEB ) August 28, 2009 — The United Nations Foundation’s Nothing But Nets, a grassroots campaign to prevent malaria by sending long-lasting insecticide-treated nets to families in Africa, announced today that the Boy Scouts of America has joined the malaria-prevention campaign as part of its 100th Anniversary Celebration. Throughout the year, Scouts from around the country will work within their communities to raise awareness about malaria, a leading killer in Africa.
BSA Chief Scout Executive Bob Mazzuca and Nothing But Nets Director Adrianna Logalbo launched the life-saving partnership today during a malaria workshop at Detroit Edison Public School Academy. Bill Gates Sr., Distinguished Eagle Scout and co-chair of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, The Honorable Dave Bing, Mayor of Detroit and Deron Washington of the NBA’s Detroit Pistons, joined Mazzuca and Logalbo at the workshop to teach more than 65 local Scouts about malaria and how to help prevent the deadly disease.
“Every single day, in almost every community across the nation, Scouts are doing their part to make this world a better place by becoming good citizens. But our concern for others doesn’t stop at our borders. We are global citizens,” Mazzuca said. “Even during a challenging economic recession, it’s hard to imagine that nearly 3,000 people die every day from a preventable disease like malaria. We’re pleased to work with the UN Foundation’s Nothing But Nets campaign to help make a positive difference for the children in Africa.”
The Boy Scouts of America joined the Nothing But Nets campaign as part of its newly launched A Year of Celebration, A Century of Making a Difference program, one of eight major engagement programs the organization is undertaking as part of its 100th Anniversary Celebration. A Year of Celebration is a recognition program that rewards Scouts, leaders, and BSA alumni for devotion to five of Scouting’s core values: leadership, character, community service, achievement, and the outdoors. For the Year of Celebration service award, Scouts can choose to participate in the Nothing But Nets service project.
“We are pleased to partner with the Boy Scouts of America and see hundreds of youth leaders work together to raise malaria awareness and spread the message of how simple it is to prevent the disease,” Logalbo said. “This initiative is powered by passionate people, and we are grateful to have the Boy Scouts help us build support to prevent malaria in Africa.”
Through this partnership with Nothing But Nets, Scouts will help build awareness about malaria and prevention by conducting service projects such as removing standing water in parks–a breeding ground for mosquitoes–and creating educational tools and activities that illustrate the impact of malaria on the global community.
The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has been a partner of the UN Foundation and its Nothing But Nets campaign since 2006 and is dedicated to eliminating malaria deaths. “It is wonderful to watch the Scouts reach out to help other young children in Africa,” Bill Gates Sr. said. “I am proud of the Boy Scouts’ dedication to service and welcome another great partner in the fight against malaria.”
Long-lasting, insecticide-treated bed nets are an easy and cost-effective method to help prevent malaria. Bed nets prevent malaria transmission by creating a protective barrier against mosquitoes at night, when the vast majority of transmissions occur. For more information about Nothing But Nets, visit www.NothingButNets.net.
About Nothing But Nets: Nothing But Nets is a global, grassroots campaign to save lives by preventing malaria, a leading killer of children in Africa. Inspired by sports columnist Rick Reilly, more than 100,000 people have joined the campaign that was created by the United Nations Foundation in 2006. Founding campaign partners include the National Basketball Association’s NBA Cares, the people of The United Methodist Church, and Sports Illustrated. It costs just $10 to provide a long-lasting, insecticide-treated bed net to prevent this deadly disease. Visit www.NothingButNets.net to send a net and save a life.
About the Boy Scouts of America:
Serving nearly 4.1 million youth between the ages of 7 and 20, with more than 300 councils throughout the United States and its territories, the BSA is the nation’s foremost youth program of character development and values-based leadership training. The Scouting movement is composed of 1.2 million volunteers, whose dedication of time and resources has enabled the BSA to remain the nation’s leading youth-service organization. For more information on the BSA, please visit www.scouting.org.
Press Contacts:
For media inquiries regarding the United Nations Foundation’s Nothing But Nets, contact:
Amy DiElsi
Communications Director, Children’s Health
(o) 202-419-3230 (c) 202-492-3078
For media inquiries regarding the Boy Scouts of America, contact
Nicole Selinger
(o) 314-982-0573 (c) 314-805-2165
Spread the word; friends don't allow friends to repeat history.
Turn up the craziness that is opposition to health care reform, and you get genuine, full-blown “hot zone” conspiracy wholly ungrounded in reality.
Like coathangers, hoaxes multiply in the closet! Put ’em in the dark, they’ll invent stuff beyond your wildest imagination. It’s a perfect storm of voodoo science, voodoo history, paranoia and just plain hysteria.
But they’ll swear it’s true.
A new hoax claims the World Health Organization (WHO) got a secret law passed to allow them to take over the world just as soon as they can get a few more people to catch swine flu. No, really.
Under special pandemic plans enacted around the world including the USA, in 2005, national governments are to be dissolved in the event of a pandemic emergency and replaced by special crisis committees, which take charge of the health and security infrastructure of a country, and which are answerable to the WHO and EU in Europe and to the WHO and UN in North America.
If the Model Emergency Health Powers Act is implemented on the instructions of WHI, it will be a criminal offence for Americans to refuse the vaccine. Police are allowed to use deadly force against “criminal” suspects.
Through their control of these special pandemic crisis committees with the power to enact legislation to be set up most countries, the WHO, UN and EU become the de facto government of a large part of the world.
Mass murder and death will also bring economic collapse and disruption, starvation and wars – and these events will lead to a further population reduction.
Absolutely false. WHO has no such plans. Check with your health professionals, they’ll tell you swine flu is a real concern (even though it looks like swift action has prevented a lot of trouble so far, and may prevent a lot of ill health later).
If you made up this sort of stuff for a movie, they’d tell you “Dr. Strangelove” pushed the envelope as far as parody would go, and you should give up writing comedy, even dark comedy.
Did you notice the typographical error there in the second paragraph, where “WHO” turns into “WHI?”
That’s a DNA-style marker for this hoax. Watch for it as it shows up at other sites where tinfoil-hat bedorned people mindlessly copy this chunk of fiction and pass it along as if it were just news about the new shopping center going in around the corner.
Do not any of these people ever stop to wonder, “Hmmmm. Curious about how this doesn’t appear on the WHO website, and how there are no links to anything that sounds even tangentially rational — I wonder if it’s true?”
Wall of Shame: Here are sites that repeated the hoax blindly, without even bothering to correct the typo (notice how few of these sites will allow you to point out an error):
Preparations to fight epidemics and pandemics are part and parcel of public health operations around the world. Almost every county in the United States has a public health office that makes plans for how to protect the local community from such diseases, and how to treat people who get the disease to help them survive. Those who spread these hoaxes rarely know that they have people in their towns to do this work — the United Nations and WHO have no authority to intervene in these cases.
What about the Model Emergency Health Act? Proposals under that name exist — none allow people to be executed for refusing vaccinations. As a matter of U.S. policy, almost all health legislation includes an out for religious objectors — Christian Scientists, for example, generally refuse vaccinations and much other treatment. Jehovah Witnessses refuse transfusions. In almost every case, those religious beliefs can be accommodated so long as the rest of us bother to protect ourselves against disease.
All of the proposals are designed to help public health officials fight disease. Public health officials might be described as the embodiment of the name Milquetoast. They are rarely in the forefront of your run-of-the-mill power-mad megalomaniac. Former public health officials who rose to power in any circumstance can be counted on one hand, if there are any. Contrast that with former religious officials, or former business executives, or former college presidents, and you begin to see reality. WHO is not populated with people who wish to take over the world á la Pinky and the Brain. WHO does not answer to people who resemble Pinky or the Brain in any way, either.
This document tracks state legislative actions so far — I dare anyone to find the trampling of civil rights and lunatic claims made at the websites listed above. If you do find troubling actions, please note them in comments here. Note well that the documents in the previous three links are maintained by officials at the State of Alaska — Sarah Palin’s appointees and public health team. It’s unlikely that Sarah Palin would be involved in a massive, international conspiracy to imprison millions of citizens just because they are not immune to influenza. Of course, maybe you know Palin better than I do and you think she’s a megalomaniac just looking for her chance to play Mussolini in America — but I doubt it.
Concerning public health measures, in line with the Regulations the Director-General is recommending, on the advice of the Committee, that all countries intensify surveillance for unusual outbreaks of influenza-like illness and severe pneumonia.
DG Statement following the meeting of the Emergency Committee
The Emergency Committee held its fourth meeting on 11th June 2009.
The Committee considered available information on transmission of New influenza A (H1N1) in a number of locations in countries in different regions of the World Health Organization, and concluded that the criteria for a pandemic have been met.
Following the advice from the Committee the WHO Director-General decided to raise the level of influenza pandemic alert from the current phase 5 to phase 6. At this early stage, the pandemic can be characterized globally as being moderate in severity.
As previously recommended by the Director-General, countries should not close borders or restrict international traffic and trade.
Countries should assess their specific situation and make a timely transition from focusing national efforts on containment to focusing on mitigation measures, including appropriate non-pharmaceutical interventions.
WHO remains in close dialogue with influenza vaccine manufacturers. It is understood that production of vaccines for seasonal influenza will be completed soon, and that full capacity will be available to ensure the largest possible supply of pandemic vaccine in the months to come.
You can see that the paranoia reflected in the sites on the Wall of Shame, is unwarranted.
The SmartRoom is designed to protect you and your family from all viruses and bacteria. It can be quickly and easily installed. The SmartRoom is lightweight, compact and is totally collapsible for storage.
The SmartRoom features an Ultraviolet Biological Airlock that you attach to any room entry in your home or office. The Smartroom Tri Filter Biological Filtration Unit creates a Biological Saferoom under positive air pressure or a Quarantine Room under negative air pressure.
If it were only so easy to protect from swine flu. If only it were so easy to protect ourselves from the conspiracy crazies.
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.
Unfortunately the act got very little coverage in the U.S. press, so far as I can tell. (Please feel free to post links to articles you know about in comments.)
Mark this carefully, you’ll not read it often here: Kudos and thank you to Rice and the Bush Administration.
In a resolution adopted unanimously after a day-long debate on women, peace and security, Council members said women and girls are consistently targeted during conflicts “as a tactic of war to humiliate, dominate, instil fear in, disperse and/or forcibly relocate civilian members of a community or ethnic group.”
The effect is to also prolong or deepen conflicts and to exacerbate already dire security and humanitarian conditions, particularly when the perpetrators of violent crimes against women go unpunished for their actions.
The resolution demands that all parties immediate stop sexual violence against civilians and begin taking measures, from the training of troops and upholding of military discipline procedures, to protect women and girls.
Sexual violence crimes should be excluded from amnesties reached at the end of conflicts, the 15-member Council added, calling on States to also strengthen their judicial and health-care systems to provide better assistance to victims of violence.
The resolution was adopted after dozens of speakers told the Council about the appalling effects of sexual violence during armed conflicts, with Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon saying the problem had reached “unspeakable and pandemic proportions” in some countries.
Mr. Ban announced he will soon appoint a UN envoy tasked entirely with advocating for an end to violence against women.
Opening today’s meeting, United States Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said the truest test of the will of the international community was the protection it gave to the most vulnerable.
“When women and girls are raped, we cannot be silent… we must be their advocates,” Ms. Rice said.
International law develops quickly, but often out of sight of most people. This action is another in a long string of international agreements that build on the laws of war, and the laws of human rights. As part of the string of treaties including the Geneva Conventions on war, this offers a 21st century turn on the laws that gave rise to the International Red Cross, the rules of war, the war crimes trials following World War II, the drive for NATO and the UN to intervene in Bosnia, and it provides commentary on events and genocides in Turkey, World War II China and Europe, Cambodia, Guatemala, San Salvador, Rwanda, Congo and Darfur — and other places we don’t even know about yet. Each class will differ; these materials suggest topics for in-class debates about current issues seen through a lens of the experience of history.
The resolution and debates offer opportunities for Document Based Questions for AP and pre-AP course practice.
A look at some of the events in a reverse chronology of the issue, from the archives of the New York Times, reveals both the difficulty of getting this simple acknowledgement made, and the horrors of rape as a tactic or weapon.
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 