Fly your U.S. flag today, to honor veterans of military service. November 11 was originally celebrated as Armistice Day after World War I’s armistice.
5 Comments | 
Flag etiquette, Fly your flag today, Heroes, History, War, World War I | Tagged: Flag etiquette, Fly your flag, Veterans Day | 
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Posted by Ed Darrell
Two Christian leaders were arrested after they held up copies of anti-war petitions they were trying to deliver to the White House.
Earlier in the day they had delivered the petitions to leaders in Congress, in both the House of Representatives and Senate.
In unrelated news, surgery to remove George Bush’s fingers from his ears was unsuccessful.
(Would it hurt Bush to just gracefully accept the petitions and deprive these people of a chance to be arrested?)
[Video of the arrest is posted with the press release. Thanks to those who wrote to let me know whether my attempt to embed the video here worked (it didn’t).]
2 Comments | Afghanistan, Dissent, History, Iraq, Politics, Religion, War | Tagged: anti-war petition, Bush White House, Religion, United Churches of Christ | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
Santayana’s ghost sends links: The Horse’s Mouth via The Good Democrat.
Who are these guys? What did they say?
Left, Gen. William Westmoreland, testifying before Congress, circa 1967; right, Gen. David Petraeus, testifying to the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, September 11, 2007
1 Comment | History, Iraq, Santayana's ghost, Vietnam, War, War on Terrorism | Tagged: History, Iraq, Vietnam, War on Terrorism | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
For U.S. students there is an uncomfortable nexus between mythology of the Arthurian style legend, Biblical mythology and history, and British history that fascinates me. The Stone of Destiny has a provenance stretching back 5,000 years to the Jewish patriarch Jacob, and which features a blog by one of the last men to steal the stone — with several stops along the way to open the story to trickery, hoaxes and uncertainty. It’s a fabulous story that too few people know.
And, as I noted, one of the last men to steal the thing is blogging away on politics today — on the topic of Iraq and how we treat our veterans, for example. Is history great, or what?
This is a long way of getting to recommending Ian Hamilton’s blog for an interesting read, which we’ll do below the fold, after a bit of history.
16 Comments | History, Hoaxes, Icons of history, Politics, Santayana's ghost, War | Tagged: History, Hoaxes, Ian Hamilton, Icons of History, Politics, Santayan's Ghost, Stone of Destiny, War | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
How about having your students work with the Library of Congress on a history project?
The Veterans History Project encourages people to contribute oral histories of veterans, a project that I think has some wonderful possibilities. Below the fold, read about Tim Mantegna, a Baltimore teen who collected histories as part of his Eagle project. This fall he enters the University of Maryland – Baltimore County to study political science, as an Eagle Scout. (Also see this story: “Iraq Veterans Record Their Stories”)
Leave a Comment » | Boy Scouts of America, Education, Heroes, History, History audio sources, History museums, Oral history, Student projects, War, Writing history | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
American Presidents, which is a great blog for history and economics teachers and students anyway, hosts the Military History Carnival.
Got a lot of carnival catch up to do. This one should help you focus on polishing lesson plans and getting ideas for student projets.
◊ Tenth century soap opera? It’s a true story. Great background — is this the sort of story that might interest women more?
◊ Waterberg – the first genocide of the 20th century. “Trail of bones.” Largely forgotten — or unknown — history of war in Africa in 1904. I’ll wager you didn’t know about it. It’s not in your world history book.
◊ What do you know about African troops fighting in Europe in World War I? This post, “Forgotten soldiers of the Great War,” is guaranteed to make World War I more relevant to your African-related students.
◊ Are you really prepared to explain the significance of the Battle of Shiloh?
◊ The school’s network went down and took your PowerPoint presentation on the Spanish Armada. What to do? Here’s some help — the PowerPoint slides you’re missing, perhaps.
◊ History is Elementary is represented by a great post about camouflage in war, particularly World War I. This is a wonderful foundation for a lesson plan that deals with non-electronic technology — and as a sidelight, this is the sort of topic where the hunters among your students will be able to provide five or six examples of modern versions, with detailed explanations about the best places to use them. (You should read the post even if it’s out of your area; it’s a fascinating mashup of art, modern art, botany, zoology, psychology and war.)
There is a magnanimous link to the Bathtub’s post on panoramic photos of World War II sites.
And a lot more. Go see.
3 Comments | 1861-1865, 1914-1918, 1941-1945, Capturing history, Civil War, Famous Battles, Geography - Physical, Heroes, Historic documents, History, War, War of 1812, World War I, World War II | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm issued an executive order that flags across Michigan would be flown at half-staff to honor Michigan soldiers who die in service to the nation in Afghanistan and Iraq. In order to make the order work, her office issues a press release designating the day, and the governor’s website makes note, too. I get an e-mail notification; you may sign up for e-mails at the governor’s website.
Are other states making it as easy to know when to fly flags at half-staff?
Here is Gov. Granholm’s latest press release, on Friday, August 17, 2007:
Flags to be Flown Half-Staff Friday for Army Private First Class Jordan E. Goode
LANSING – Governor Jennifer M. Granholm today ordered United States flags throughout the state of Michigan and on Michigan waters lowered for one day on Tuesday, August 21, 2007, in honor of Army Private First Class Jordan E. Goode, of Kalamazoo, who died August 11 while on active duty in Afghanistan. Flags should return to full-staff on Wednesday, August 22.
Pfc. Goode, age 21, died in Zormont, Afghanistan, from wounds suffered from an improvised explosive device. He was assigned to the 4th Squadron, 73rd Cavalry Regiment, 4th Brigade Combat Team, 82nd Airborne Division, Fort Bragg, North Carolina.
Under Section 7 of Chapter 1 of Title 4 of the United States Code, 4 USC 7, Governor Granholm, in December 2003, issued a proclamation requiring United States flags lowered to half-staff throughout the state of Michigan and on Michigan waters to honor Michigan servicemen and servicewomen killed in the line of duty. Procedures for flag lowering were detailed by Governor Granholm in Executive Order 2006-10.
When flown at half-staff or half-mast, the United States flag should be hoisted first to the peak for an instant and then lowered to the half-staff or half-mast position. The flag should again be raised to the peak before it is lowered for the day.
When a member of the armed services from Michigan is killed in action, the governor will issue a press release with information about the individual(s) and the day that has been designated for flags to be lowered in his or her honor. The information will also be posted on Governor Granholm’s website at www.michigan.gov/gov in the section titled “Spotlight.”
# # #
Our condolences go out to the family of Pvt. Jordan Goode.
And our compliments for helping people with flag etiquette go to Gov. Granholm.
1 Comment | Flag etiquette, War | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
Our Italian physicist friend, Dorigo, at A Quantum Diaries Survivor reports that an Italian court ruled against a newspaper that started a campaign to deny the history of the Ardeatine Massacre.
Good news today. The supreme court of Cassazione in Italy has ruled that the press campaign labeling “terrorists” the GAP partisans who organized the bombing of Via Rasella in nazi-occupied Rome in 1944, launched by the national newspaper “Il Giornale”, was a striking example of manipulation of historic truth for political means. The newspaper is owned by Paolo Berlusconi (brother of Silvio, formerly premier of Italy in 1994 and 2001-2006), and was directed by Vittorio Feltri . . . a journalist who never hid his sympathy for the extreme right.
What was the Ardeatine Massacre?
The massacre of Fosse Ardeatine (Italian: Eccidio delle Fosse Ardeatine) took place in Rome, Italy during World War II. On 23 March 1944, 2 German soldiers, 31 Italian soldiers of Battaglione Bozen and a few Italian civilians passing along the road, were killed when members of the Italian Resistance set off a bomb close to a column of German soldiers who were marching on via Rasella[1]. This terrorist attack was led by the Gruppi di Azione Patriottica, of Rosario Bentivegna, Carla Capponi, Antonello Trombadori (Head of GAP in Roma) and the approval of Sandro Pertini (later President of Italian Republic), in order to provocate the reaction of SS troops.
Adolf Hitler is reported but never confirmed to have ordered that within 24 hours, one-hundred Italians were to be shot for each dead German. Commander Herbert Kappler in Rome concluded that ten Italians for each dead German would be sufficient and quickly compiled a list of 320 civilians who were to be killed. Kappler voluntarily added ten more names to the list when the 33rd German/Italian died after the Partisan attack. The total number of people murdered at the Fosse Ardeatine was 335, most Italians. The largest cohesive group among the murdered were the members of Bandiera Rossa, a Communist military Resistance group.
Why is there controversy 60 years later? Read the rest of this entry »
4 Comments | 1941-1945, Accuracy, Bogus history, History, History Revisionism, Hoaxes, Jurisprudence, Justice, Politics, TAKS, TEKS, Voodoo history, War, World War II | Tagged: Ardeatine Massacre, Holocaust, Human Rights, Rome, Travel, World War II | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
Santayana’s ghost* e-mailed to call attention to this interview with Vice President Dick Cheney, in which he tells the errors of invading Iraq and deposing Saddam Hussein.
Unfortunately, the interview was with Dick Cheney in 1994, when he was ex-Secretary of Defense, hanging out with the American Enterprise Institute.
Talk about condemned to repeat the errors of history!
* In this case, in the guise of son, Kenny.
3 Comments | History, History video sources, Iraq, Presidents, Quotes, Santayana's ghost, War | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
Continuing the week of contemplation of atomic bombs: Remember today is the anniversary of the destruction of Nagasaki, with a U.S. atomic bomb.
Japan surrendered unconditionally a short while later. See the earlier posts for more links.
Top photo: Nagasaki after the bomb. Bottom photo, Nagasaki National Peace Memorial Hall, photo by Toshio Kaneko, Architectural Record.
6 Comments | Atomic Bomb, History, War, World War II | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
. . . that will drive the “mainstream media (MSM)” critics to distraction. Are we sure it’s a good idea to let Rupert Murdoch own the Wall Street Journal?
Orcinus tells conservative commentators to grow up:
Remember the fuss over Jet Pilot Action Figure Bush’s “package”? Damn fool didn’t loosen his straps before getting out of the jet. Nobody else on the deck had his crotch trussed up like a Christmas goose; and to them, he looked like a rookie idiot. But Chris Matthews practically had an orgasm on-air while watching him prance and strut.) The fact that so many mainstream and conservative media guys are suckered by this posturing shows that they don’t really have a clue about what a Real Man looks like — though, somewhere deep down inside, they’re pretty sure they don’t qualify. That’s why they’re so easily wowed by men who can put on the costume and make it look good.
But they’re even more easily cowed by men who can actually fill the boots. John Kerry. John McCain. Colin Powell. Bill Clinton. (You don’t have to agree with their politics; but nobody can say these men haven’t comfortably worn the full measure of male power and responsibility for some critical stretch of their lives.) Like little boys, the media guys are so awed by the outward forms of masculinity that they eagerly make a fetish out of them; but they also actively fear and resent men who display the authentic internal goods that make an honest-to-God man. These guys’ very presence incites such a strong sense of personal inadequacy that the Boys On The Bus can only resort to attacking them in ways that are openly calculated to feminize them — that is, to bring them down to their own level. He look French. He’s whipped by his powerful wife. He’s preoccupied with his hair. Translation: This guy has more balls and more maturity than we do — and we need to take him down before everybody figures out how inadequate that makes us feel.
And this:
. . . the first rule of real macho was that those who possess it never need to prove it to anyone. If you have to prove it or put it out on display, you don’t have it in the first place. And if you are intimidated by seeing it in others, you aren’t even in the ballpark. The truth of that should come home to all of us every time we hear an MSM or conservative talking head going on in breathless awe about some public figure’s “manhood,” or asking leering, creepy questions about other people’s sex lives.
In a time when we need thought leaders who can help us sort out the issues and navigate the national crisis, we’ve got a media staffed by sniggering, leering first-graders who exhibit every regressive intellectual, moral, emotional, and sexual characteristic of right-wing authoritarian followers. It’s time to clean house — and to demand new media voices who aren’t in business to make fun of the grownups, or shamed by people who show the attributes of true maturity and power. It’s time to send the scared little boys home, and put some authentic adults in charge.
1 Comment | Current History, Heroes, History, Leadership, Newspapers, Politics, Radio, Reason, Television, War | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
August 7 is the 43rd anniversary of the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, the resolution which authorized President Lyndon B. Johnson to move troops into South Vietnam to defend U.S. interests.
The resolution passed Congress after what appeared to be attacks on two U.S. Navy ships in the Gulf of Tonkin. At the time, and now, evidence is weak that such attacks took place.
Santayana’s ghost looks on in wonder.
Leave a Comment » | History, Lyndon B. Johnson, Presidents, U.S. Constitution, U.S. House of Representatives, U.S. Senate, Vietnam, War | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
Real history has enough mystery and controversy in it that one need not make up fictions.
I posed a question about who served the shortest term on the Supreme Court.
I had stumbled across the fact, and found it interesting: Edwin McMasters Stanton was a Supreme Court Associate Justice for one day in 1869.
Or was he? In the comments to my previous post, Ray from Anything Goes Discussions Edutechation (or Education Technology, more formally) pointed out that the official list of members from the Supreme Court Historical Association denies that Stanton took the oath of office, and so does not list him as a Member of the Court. What are the facts?
One source I have said Stanton took the oath of office on his deathbed, and died within hours. (Wikipedia agrees, but on such an issue, without reference, one should not trust it unconditionally.) The list from the Supreme Court specifically mentions the need to take the oath of office to be a Member, and leaves Stanton off the list, suggesting that he did not take the oath. What’s the truth in this matter? I do not know.
1 Comment | 1861-1865, Abraham Lincoln, Cartoons, Civil War, History, Politics, Reconstruction, War | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
Richard van Emden is not a well known historian in the U.S., but perhaps he should be better known (he is also a television producer). This is exactly the sort of work that we need more historians doing:
Van Emden is interviewing Harry Patch of Somerset, England. Patch is 109 years old, and is the last known surviving soldier to have fought in the trenches in Belgium for the Allies in World War I.
Harry Patch, foreground, and Richard van Emden visit the site of the World War I Battle of Passchendaele, near Flanders, Belgium.
250,000 British soldiers died in the battle.
The 109-year-old fought in the Battle of Passchendaele when he was aged 19.
He served with the Duke of Cornwall’s light infantry and was called up for service while working as an 18-year-old apprentice plumber in Bath.
During the fighting, Mr Patch was badly wounded and three of his best friends were killed when a shell exploded just yards from where he was standing.
He made the trip with historian Richard van Emden, who helped Mr Patch write down his memories.
Mr van Emden showed him the five miles they advanced over 99 days which claimed 3,000 British casualties every day.
He was also shown a recently discovered panoramic photograph of the fields taken in 1917.
“Too many died,” said Mr Patch. “War isn’t worth one life.”
Interviews with participants in history, with the eyewitnesses, provide a good training ground for future historians. The interviews generally provide great value, even when done by amateurs, such as high school students.
Teachers, how many veterans of how many wars live in your town? How many of them have been asked to tell about their experiences?
4 Comments | Capturing history, Heroes, History, War, World War I | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
Some people still defend the Madisonian view of the Constitution and its limits on the powers of the president (Adam Cohen in the New York Times):
The Constitution cannot enforce itself. It is, as the constitutional scholar Edwin Corwin famously observed, an “invitation to struggle” among the branches, but the founders wisely bequeathed to Congress some powerful tools for engaging in the struggle. It is no surprise that the current debate over a deeply unpopular war is arising in the context of a Congressional spending bill. That is precisely what the founders intended.
Members of Congress should not be intimidated into thinking that they are overstepping their constitutional bounds. If the founders were looking on now, it is not Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi who would strike them as out of line, but George W. Bush, who would seem less like a president than a king.
2 Comments | Historic documents, History, Iraq, Presidents, U.S. Constitution, War | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
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Ed Darrell on Texas's Colorado River
Come on in, the water's fine. Come often: Cleanliness is next to godliness.
Millard Fillmore's Bathtub 