Gerald Ford, nice guy

December 26, 2006

Gerald Ford died today. He was 93, the longest-surviving ex-president.

President Gerald R. Ford and Mrs. Betty Ford walk with their daughter, Susan, and family dog, Liberty, at Camp David Aug. 7, 1976.
President Gerald R. Ford and Mrs. Betty Ford walk with their daughter, Susan, and family dog, Liberty, at Camp David Aug. 7, 1976. Photo probably by David Hume Kennerly.

When a president dies, newspapers and news magazines pull out the stops to make their coverage of the person’s life exhaustive. You’ll see a lot about Gerald Ford in the next few days.

Gerald Ford, White House portrait, by Everett Raymond Kinstler
Official White House portrait of President Gerald R. Ford, by Everett Raymond Kinstler, painted 1977.

My college internship* with the U.S. Senate took me to Washington in 1974, just after Ford had assumed the Vice Presidency under the new rules of the 25th Amendment. Ford was selected as Vice President after Spiro T. Agnew had resigned in lieu of being prosecuted for taking kickbacks from his days as governor of Maryland. Within a few months he was elevated to the presidency when Richard Nixon resigned in August 1974.

But for a few months he was President of the Senate. Starting with Spiro Agnew, vice presidents no longer spend a lot of time on Capitol Hill fulfilling their Constitutional duties as Senate leader. Hubert Humphrey had been quite active as vice president, carrying key messages from the White House to the Congress, and from Congress to the President, and pushing legislation with Lyndon Johnson, in what was surely one of the most effective legislative teams in the history of the world.

And when he was acting as President of the Senate, I first ran into Gerald Ford — literally.

I interned with the Senate Democratic Policy Committee, in the office of the late Secretary of the Senate Frank Valeo. Majority Leader Mike Mansfield (D-Mont.) signed my credentials (we didn’t have photo I.D.s in those days), and since Mansfield had so few interns, or staffers, we, and I had the run of the Capitol (and Washington, too — with Mansfield’s signature I could get into the White House press room, which was a great place to hang out then. I also had Senate floor privileges, the value of which became clear to me only years later when I staffed for another senator. As an intern I could walk on the floor at any time, and sometimes did to watch debates. Staffers generally cannot do that at will.)

Read the rest of this entry »

8 Comments | Boy Scouts of America, Current History, Gerald Ford, Presidents, Watergate scandal | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

Seymour Papert update

December 26, 2006

MIT’s Media Laboratory says they will post updates as they get them.  As of today, Dr. Papert is resting in Massachusetts General Hospital’s Intensive Care Unit (ICU), taking no visitors, and still in a coma.

Meanwhile, there is also an electronic get-well card you may sign.

Leave a Comment » | Brain development, Classroom technology, Teaching, Technology in the classroom | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

‘First, Roy Moore came for Keith Ellison . . .’

December 26, 2006

While denying that they have any racist or other xenophobic intent, critics of Minnesota’s U.S. Representative-elect Keith Ellison, like the abominable Dennis Prager, continue to try to gin up reasons why he cannot carry his own scriptures to Congress, why he cannot have the rights that every school child in America has, because the scriptures Ellison carries are Islamic.

Except for Roy Moore, the Xian Nationalist, unreconstructed Christian Reconstructionist, and Christian Dominionist who probably got the memorandum about how they aren’t supposed to talk about it in public, but who lets it fly anyway.

Representing the Great Booboisie, Roy Moore says Ellison should not be seated in Congress at all.

Alabama’s voters were wise to reject Roy Moore as governor, after Moore burned the people so badly when they trusted him to be chief justice of the state’s supreme court, and he instead turned the court into a circus of religious pomposity and disregard for the laws of religious freedom. Another History Blog Fisks the manifold, manifest errors Moore makes.

I cannot escape the feeling that Moore is speaking for most Reconstructionists and Dominionists, Read the rest of this entry »

9 Comments | Accuracy, America's founding, Bad Quotes, Bill of Rights, Bogus history, Civil Rights, First Amendment, Freedom - Political, Good Quotes, History Revisionism, Patriotism, Religious Freedom, Voodoo history | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

Teaching Carnival #18

December 26, 2006

Your students and their parents will tell you, “education” is not the same thing as “teaching.”

Nor is this an exercise in instruction for how to properly bark a carnival, or run the roller coaster or Ferris wheel — but go check it out anyway.  More good stuff, more good blogs, more good links:  Teaching Carnival #18 at xoom.

(And until a few minutes ago, I didn’t know there were separate carnivals, either.)

Tip of the old scrub brush to Another History Blog

Leave a Comment » | Uncategorized | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

Accidental humor — Fillmore and Bush

December 26, 2006

Whitehouse.gov features biographical and other information on every president. As a baseline source of data, it works very well.

So, preparing for the anniversary of Millard Fillmore’s birth (January 7, 1800), I was checking details at the site, and I noted that it carried a “related links” box.

Millard Fillmore coloring book, done by a kid, from White House

Millard Fillmore is widely considered to be one of the worst, or most inactive, presidents in U.S. history. He was an accidental president, taking office on the death of Zachary Taylor. Trying to avoid controversy and confrontation he let fester many of the problems that would lead to the Civil War. He was a one-term president — his own party refused to nominate him for election on his own, in 1852. After the Whig Party crashed and burned, Fillmore accepted the nomination of the American Party, more commonly known as the Know-Nothing Party, in 1856. “Millard Fillmore” is shorthand for “failed presidency” in most lexicons.

So, what should we make of the box on the page, “Related Links,” which points to President George W. Bush? Read the rest of this entry »

Leave a Comment » | Accuracy, Millard Fillmore, Technology in the classroom | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

Thinking outside the bathtub: Here, read this!

December 26, 2006

How did I find KnowHR? I don’t remember now. I do remember that it featured a very interesting post on presentations, one of the areas of pet peeves of mine, especially as they related to bad PowerPoint presentations offered to teachers for use in the classroom — or worse, offered by teachers in the classroom.

We corresponded briefly on turning-point “presentations” in history (Go see, here, here, and here).

“HR” in that blog’s title stands for “human resources,” I’m guessing — they lean toward corporate human resources issues. That’s a long way from history and teaching history, for some people. Sadly, it’s a long way for many administrators and other leaders who could use some HR tips about how to get history taught better . . . but I digress.

KnowHR recently featured a “z-list.” It’s a list of blogs that you probably ought to look at from time to time, high quality blogs with material you can use — but blogs you won’t get to in the normal course of your business. It was tagged with a meme: Pass the list along, and add a couple of other very worthy blogs at the end. I’m passing it along, below the fold. Read the rest of this entry »

1 Comment | Creativity, Education blogs, Teaching, Technology, Weblogs | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

Carnival of the Liberals #28

December 26, 2006

I rather like the image of the Statute of Liberty. As an icon of freedom, it’s among the best. Help keep it: Go read the 28th installment of the Carnival of the Liberals, over at Living the Scientific Life (Scientist, Interrupted).

Leave a Comment » | Patriotism, Politics | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

Merry Christmas, 2006

December 25, 2006

I wish a Merry Christmas to all readers and friends. It would be a good thing to have.

There is plenty of room at the inns in Bethlehem today — the continuing violence hammers tourism in the city. The International Herald Tribune carries an Associated Press story on the dearth of tourists, which means many natives of the city continue to face dramatically reduced incomes.

BETHLEHEM, West Bank: Hundreds of people packed the Church of the Nativity on Monday to celebrate Christmas at Jesus’ traditional birthplace, but few foreign tourists were among the worshippers, putting a damper on the holiday cheer.

Nun lights candles at the Church of the Nativity, Christmas 2006

Houston Chronicle photo by Quique Kierzenbaum – Nun prays at the Church of the Nativity, in Bethlehem.

Indeed, Christianity may be dying in the town. (For a more detailed and closer look at events in Bethlehem, take a gander at Reclaiming Space’s “Christmas in Bethlehem.“) Read the rest of this entry »

Leave a Comment » | Peace, War | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

Time to stand up for religious freedom: Lay off of Rep. Ellison

December 23, 2006

It was just sad when Dennis Prager prostituted U.S. history to rant at Minnesota’s U.S. Representative-elect Keith Ellison, for Ellison’s having said he’d use his faith’s scriptures for a staged photograph commemorating his being sworn in as a Member of the U.S. House of Representatives. Ignorance can be so ugly.

It was jarring when so many others demonstrated their ignorance of the First Amendment and Constitutional history by repeating Prager’s concerns. Ignorance is contagious.

It was tragic when a few people, after having had a chance to repent of their ignorance, then mounted an assault on the Constitution by continuing to demand something was wrong with the situation, even calling for Ellison to give up his faith for the ceremony. Ignorance can be cured, why would anyone reject the cure?

It’s time to stop piling stupidity on stupidity: Rep. Virgil Goode (ironically named, no doubt), a Republican representing much of southern Virginia in the U.S. House (5th District) took aim at Ellison’s election itself, calling for “immigration reform” to prevent a Muslim takeover of Congress.

Goode’s comments are insensitive, xenophobic, insulting, demonstrative of ignorance, and just wrong on so many counts it is hard to determine which rebuttal is more important. So, random rebuttals follow. [I’ve come back to this four times today. It makes me amazingly angry, and I have to take a break.] Read the rest of this entry »

6 Comments | Bogus history, Education, First Amendment, Holocaust, Patriotism, Politics, Religious Freedom | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

The Christmas card I wish I had

December 23, 2006

Olduvai George is just wonderful; go see his card.

The tree is up — a new one to us, still not natural in hopes of preventing the family-wide sinusitis the physicians say is caused by living things on the real trees.  The wreaths are up outside (a bit late, but still before Christmas).  One batch of mulled cider down already; St. Olaf’s and King’s College and Colorado State Choirs on the CD player (Emmy Lou and Louis Armstrong coming up).

Gotta find the Santa hat to put on the bust of Einstein, though.

Christmas cards always vex.  It’s difficult to walk the line between the friends who border on fanatic Christian and take offense at humorous cards, the friends who border on radical atheist and take offense at religious themes, the friends whose international concerns virtually dictate cards from international children’s agencies that feed several villages in Africa or Bengla Desh.

A mammoth card walks the line nicely, I think.  I’ve urged George to publish them; if you think you might like one, go tell him.

Tip of the old scrub brush to P. Z. Myers and Pharyngula.

Leave a Comment » | Accuracy, Natural history, Prehistory, Science | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

Battle of Medina (Texas) entry revised

December 23, 2006

Since I posted on the Battle of Medina last August, the entry has consistently been hit by educational institutions and what appear to be students looking for information on the events. I have updated the entry, correcting a couple of minor errors and some narrative difficulties, and adding links to sources students and teachers should find useful.

You’ll find the improved post here, “Forgotten Texas History: The Battle of Medina.”

Leave a Comment » | Famous Battles, Freedom - Political, History, Lesson plans, TEKS, Texas | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

Free Inconvenient Truth for teachers

December 23, 2006

    Update: As of February 11, 2007, all 50,000 free copies have been given away. You may register for other giveaways and contests of Participate.net

.

Participate.net is giving away 50,000 copies of the movie on climate change, An Inconvenient Truth.

First 50,000 teachers who ask. Go here: http://www.participate.net/educators/pub_files/ait-block_dvd.jpg

One more way Al Gore is ahead of his time.

2 Comments | Accuracy, Current History, Economics, Environmental protection, Geography - Physical, Geography - Political, History video sources, Video and film | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

Ranan Lurie cartoon competition: Sabat, African tsunami

December 22, 2006

Most readers here are from the United States. I wager you didn’t see this cartoon when it was first published:

"Tsunami," by Alberto Sabat, La Nacion in Argentina. Winner of the Lurie-UN Cartoon award, 2007.

“Tsunami,” by Alberto Sabat, La Nacion in Argentina

This cartoon won the 2006 Ranan Lurie Award for editorial cartooning, an international competition supported by the United Nations Correspondents Association (other 2006 winners here). The title of the cartoon is “African Tsunami.”

The cartoonist is Alberto Sabat, the cartoon was published in La Nacion in Argentina. The award is named after the outstanding cartoonist Ranan Lurie, who himself was once nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize for his cartoons that promoted peace and understanding.

Political cartoons make classrooms interesting, and often provoke students to think hard and talk a lot about things they should be thinking and talking about. These links provide more sources of classroom material — please remember to note copyright information.

Tip of the old scrub brush to Reclaiming Space.

Update, December 2007: 2007 Lurie Awards announced; my post here, all the 2007 winners at the Lurie Awards site here.

Update, December 2008:  2008 awards post.

Update December 2009:  2009 awards listed here.

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23 Comments | Africa, Cartoons, Drought, Geography - Economic, Geography - Political, History, hunger, Newspapers, Political cartoons, Poverty | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

Carl Sagan

December 22, 2006

I’m a day behind — but, that just makes it more like real history, no?

Carl Sagan & Mars Viking Lander, NASA JPL photo

Carl Sagan and the Mars “Viking” Lander, NASA/JPL photo

Yesterday was the tenth anniversary of Carl Sagan’s death. Several bloggers are blogging to commemorate his memory.

I’ll borrow wholesale; John Pieret at Thoughts in a Haystack pulled out a passage from Sagan’s book, Demon-Haunted World, that has rung true for me. Here it is:

Pieret wrote: For this passage (pp. 414-15), Sagan begins by discussing George Orwell’s 1984 and its roots in Stalinism:

Soon after Stalin took power, pictures of his rival Leon Trotsky — a monumental figure in the 1905 and 1917 revolutions–began to disappear. Heroic and wholly anhistoric paintings of Stalin and Lenin together directing the Bolshevik Revolution took their place, with Trotsky, the founder of the Red Army, nowhere in evidence. These images became icons of the state. You could see them in every office building, on outdoor advertising signs sometimes ten stories high, in museums, on postage stamps.

New generations grew up believing that was their history. Older generations began to feel that they remembered something of the sort, a kind of political false-memory syndrome. Those who made the accommodation between their real memories and what the leadership wished them to believe exercised what Orwell described as “doublethink.” Those who did,not, those old Bolsheviks who could recall the peripheral role of Stalin in the Revolution and the central role of Trotsky, were denounced as traitors or unreconstructed bourgeoisie or “Trotskyites” or “Trotsky-fascists,” and were imprisoned, tortured, made to confess their treason in public, and then executed. …

In our time, with total fabrication of realistic stills, motion pictures, and videotapes technologically within reach, with television in every home, and with critical thinking in decline, restructuring societal memories even without much attention from the secret police seems possible. What I’m imagining here is not that each of us has a budget of memories implanted in special therapeutic sessions by state-appointed psychiatrists, but rather that small numbers of people will have so much control over news stories, history books, and deeply affecting images as to work major changes in collective attitudes.

We saw a pale echo of what is now possible in 1990-1991, when Saddam Hussein, the autocrat of Iraq, made a sudden transition in the American consciousness from an obscure near-ally — granted commodities, high technology, weaponry, and even satellite intelligence data — to a slavering monster menacing the world. I am not myself an admirer of Mr. Hussein, but it was striking how quickly he could be brought from someone almost no American had heard of into the incarnation of evil. These days the apparatus for generating indignation is busy elsewhere. How confident are we that the power to drive and determine public opinion will always reside in responsible hands?

Good things for historians to ponder.

3 Comments | Bogus history, History, Science, Science and faith, Voodoo history | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

“Yes, Virginia,” most famous editorial ever, Newseum says

December 21, 2006

Is this the man who really saved Santa Claus?

The Newseum itself doesn’t open until autumn of 2007, but some exhibits are already up, online.

Among other things already up is this explanation for the 1897 editorial in The New York Sun, with the famous line: “Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus.” It is “history’s most reprinted editorial,” the Newseum says.

While you’re there, look at other exhibits already in place. This is a good source for kids’ reports and for teachers’ lectures.

Update: Parallel Divergence is at it again (remember the “how Hubble killed God?”) Here it is: “How Google Earth Killed Santa Claus.”

Update May 2007:  Coverage of the Newseum’s pending opening.

1 Comment | First Amendment, Good Quotes, History, Newspapers | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

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