It’s an awkward scene. John Goodman has a lousy role (and I’m not fond of the direction for him or Melanie Griffith here). I’ve never seen the movie, “Born Yesterday,” and I don’t know the context.
But ten important amendments to the Constitution, to the tune of “The Twelve Days of Christmas,” a potentially useful mnemonic device for your U.S. history, and government students; it’s mostly accurate:
There is some skipping around — the song covers the First, Second, Fourth, Fifth, and Sixth Amendments, then skips to the Thirteenth, Fifteenth, Sixteenth, Eighteenth, and Nineteenth Amendments. The First Amendment’s five freedoms are covered completely, other amendments not so much.
The actor in the scene, playing the senator who sings the Fifteenth Amendment, is former Tennessee U.S. Sen. Fred Thompson. Thompson staffed the Watergate Committee chaired by Sen. Sam Ervin of North Carolina, earlier — wouldn’t it be interesting to hear his views on this scene, and song, and what other tricks he may have encountered in the Senate, from Sen. Ervin, or the late Sen. Robert C. Byrd?
It’s not Schoolhouse Rock, but it’s really very good. Everything covered in the song is in Texas TEKS, but some things skipped, like the Fourteenth Amendment, are also required. Can you use it in your classes?
And by the way, does anyone know a rap for the Bill of Rights?
What’s that racket, that squealing, that ‘stuck’ pig noise?
Space-filling model of sulfur hexafluoride (SF6) - Wikimedia image. Sulfur hexafluoride is one of the most powerful greenhouse gases known, with "global warming potential" 22,800 times that of CO2. EPA proposes to measure SF6 emissions as a first step toward reducing emissions. Warming deniers propose to stop the regulations.
EPA published regulations for measuring greenhouse gases as part of its CO2 emission regulatory program — and the noise is the reaction of the anti-warmists.
Here’s EPA’s press release — notice the links to longer explanations, and note especially that the regulations are not final yet, but are instead open for public comment.
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
June 29, 2010
EPA Issues Greenhouse Gas Reporting Requirements for Four Emissions Sources
Agency also to consider data confidentiality
WASHINGTON – The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is finalizing requirements under its national mandatory greenhouse gas (GHG) reporting program for underground coal mines, industrial wastewater treatment systems, industrial waste landfills and magnesium production facilities. The data from these sectors will provide a better understanding of GHG emissions and will help EPA and businesses develop effective policies and programs to reduce them.
Methane is the primary GHG emitted from coal mines, industrial wastewater treatment systems and industrial landfills and is more than 20 times as potent as carbon dioxide at warming the atmosphere. The main fluorinated GHG emitted from magnesium production is sulfur hexafluoride, which has an even greater warming potential than methane, and can stay in the atmosphere for thousands of years.
These source categories will begin collecting emissions data on January 1, 2011, with the first annual reports submitted to EPA on March 31, 2012.
In a separate proposed rule, EPA is requesting public comment on which industry related GHG information would be made publicly available and which would be considered confidential. Under the Clean Air Act, all emission data are public. Some non-emission data, however, may be considered confidential, because it relates to specific information which, if made public, could harm a business’s competitiveness. Examples of data considered confidential under this proposal include certain information reported by fossil fuel and industrial gas suppliers related to production quantities and raw materials. EPA is committed to providing the public with as much information as possible while following the law.
The GHG reporting program requires suppliers of fossil fuels or industrial GHGs and large direct emitters of greenhouse gases to report to EPA. Collecting this data will allow businesses to track emissions and identify cost effective ways to reduce emissions. EPA is preparing to provide data to the public after the first annual GHG reports are submitted in March 2011.
There will be a 60-day public comment period on the proposed rules that will begin upon publication in the federal register.
More information on the final rule to add reporting requirements for four source categories:
These regulations are those complained about and proposed to be stopped by critics of the campaign to stop global warming. Alaska’s pro-warming Sen. Lisa Murkowski introduced a resolution to stop these regulations, with the support of junk science lobbyists including the National Center for Policy Research. Fortunately, on June 10 the Senate voted 47-53 to reject a motion to consider the resolution, S. J. Res. 26, “A joint resolution disapproving a rule submitted by the Environmental Protection Agency relating to the endangerment finding and the cause or contribute findings for greenhouse gases under section 202(a) of the Clean Air Act.”
Both of Texas’s senators were suckered by the junk science. Sen. John Cornyn and Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison both co-sponsored the losing resolution. Texas Gov. Rick Perry and Attorney General Greg Abbott filed suit to stop the regulations. Abbott’s opponent in the 2010 elections, Barbara Ann Radnofsky, probably the only one of these Texans who might understand sulfur hexafluoride’s role as a pollutant, criticized the suit and urged Abbott to spend his time protecting Texas oil fields from oil company sabotage.
Help control emissions from climate “skeptics,” and spread the good word:
Spread the word; friends don't allow friends to repeat history.
Nice drive to Corpus Christi for the Texas Democratic Convention. Long drive. Very long drive. One yearns for the days when flying inside Texas was much more affordable.
Interstate 35 traffic frustrates several million people a day. One cannot drive through Austin without a slowdown at any hour of most business days. Once-clear country roads are congested. Clearly that problem needs some attention.
It’s a stirring and interesting sight that greets you coming into Corpus Christi on I-37. From a distance you’ll see the massive wind farm, huge windmills cranking out electricity, almost a vision of a cleaner future through the haze. Closer into town the windmills can be seen through the industrial maze of oil refineries. It probably can’t be photographed well except from the air, but it’s an interesting juxtaposition of the changes Texas lives through, and the challenges ahead. I was reminded of the “successful labor-management negotiation” workshops:
Hope for the future, a picture of reality . . . now, what are the plans to proceed?
Bill White’s speech pleased the crowd. Not fire and brimstone; enough humor that most delegates smiled all the way through, but full of substantive contrasts between Rick Perry’s policies and those White wishes to pursue instead. Parts of the speech carry the mark of brilliant speech writing, especially in the breezy, pleasant way White paints the policy differences. Here’s the end of the speech:
Rick Perry will claim he represents Texas values. But Perry’s Texas is different than our Texas.
In Rick Perry’s Texas insurance and utility rates rise faster than in other states. In our Texas wages will go up faster because we invest in people.
In Rick Perry’s Texas we import nurses and welders and other skilled workers from abroad. In our Texas we will train more Texans to do those jobs.
In Rick Perry’s Texas the State Board of Education injects political ideology into classrooms. In our Texas we’ll put more computers in our classrooms.
In Rick Perry’s Texas state boards and agencies are pressured from the top to serve those who help the Governor’s re-election. In our Texas government will be the servant, not the master, and our customers will be ordinary Texans.
In Rick Perry’s Texas the governor threatens to leave the world’s greatest country. He is content [to] allow our state to compete with Mississippi for lack of social progress. In our Texas other states will follow Texas because we will be the leader.
In Rick Perry’s Texas citizens are stuck in traffic in big cities because the Texas Department of Transportation was doing the bidding of a foreign company promoting the land grab known as the Trans-Texas Corridor. In our Texas we will work across party lines for a new mobility plan, assisting commuters to get from home to work and all communities to get their goods to market.
In Rick Perry’s Texas the best days may be behind us. In our Texas our best days are ahead of us.
Let us go from this convention, staffing phone banks, knocking on doors, and sending emails. Lift up all who share our values, from the courthouse to the statehouse to the double-wide trailer Andrea and I will live in while the Mansion is rebuilt. Describe to friends and neighbors, from both parties, the simple choice we face in the governor’s race.
Rick Perry is in it for Rick Perry. By the grace of God and with your help, I’m in it for Texas, for you.
Bill White, after his speech at the Texas Democratic Convention - R. G. Ratcliff photo, Houston Chronicle blogs
It was one of the most positive speeches I’ve heard at conventions in a long time — takes me back to Mo Udall at the 1976 National Democratic Convention, or Ted Kennedy’s at the 1980 convention. White came down in favor of education, roads and lower taxes, and good government in general. Cleverly, astoundingly, each of his jabs at Rick Perry was on a substantive, policy issue, and not just a one-liner. No lipstick on pigs, not even a silver foot-in-the-mouth (apologies to Ann Richards, but not to Sarah Palin).
“In delivering one of the most negative speeches by a nominee for Texas governor in modern history, Bill White continues to run a campaign of no substance,” said Perry campaign spokesperson Mark Miner. “Governor Perry’s proven leadership, Texas values, and priorities of limited government, fiscal responsibility, and job creation have made our state the envy of the nation.”
The race is on, and the choices are already very, very clear.
Update:
Spread the word; friends don't allow friends to repeat history.
First time in years I’ve gotten solid information from a politician that didn’t come wrapped in a plea for money. I got a message from President Obama today (I’m sure a few million of his closest friends got the same one):
Ed —
Yesterday, I visited Caminada Bay in Grand Isle, Louisiana — one of the first places to feel the devastation wrought by the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. While I was here, at Camerdelle’s Live Bait shop, I met with a group of local residents and small business owners.
Folks like Floyd Lasseigne, a fourth-generation oyster fisherman. This is the time of year when he ordinarily earns a lot of his income. But his oyster bed has likely been destroyed by the spill.
Terry Vegas had a similar story. He quit the 8th grade to become a shrimper with his grandfather. Ever since, he’s earned his living during shrimping season — working long, grueling days so that he could earn enough money to support himself year-round. But today, the waters where he has worked are closed. And every day, as the spill worsens, he loses hope that he will be able to return to the life he built.
Here, this spill has not just damaged livelihoods. It has upended whole communities. And the fury people feel is not just about the money they have lost. It is about the wrenching recognition that this time their lives may never be the same.
These people work hard. They meet their responsibilities. But now because of a manmade catastrophe — one that is not their fault and beyond their control — their lives have been thrown into turmoil. It is brutally unfair. And what I told these men and women is that I will stand with the people of the Gulf Coast until they are again made whole.
That is why, from the beginning, we have worked to deploy every tool at our disposal to respond to this crisis. Today, there are more than 20,000 people working around the clock to contain and clean up this spill. I have authorized 17,500 National Guard troops to participate in the response. More than 1,900 vessels are aiding in the containment and cleanup effort. We have convened hundreds of top scientists and engineers from around the world. This is the largest response to an environmental disaster of this kind in the history of our country.
We have also ordered BP to pay economic injury claims, and this week, the federal government sent BP a preliminary bill for $69 million to pay back American taxpayers for some of the costs of the response so far. In addition, after an emergency safety review, we are putting in place aggressive new operating standards for offshore drilling. And I have appointed a bipartisan commission to look into the causes of this spill. If laws are inadequate, they will be changed. If oversight was lacking, it will be strengthened. And if laws were broken, those responsible will be brought to justice.
These are hard times in Louisiana and across the Gulf Coast, an area that has already seen more than its fair share of troubles. The people of this region have met this terrible catastrophe with seemingly boundless strength and character in defense of their way of life. What we owe them is a commitment by our nation to match the resilience they have shown. That is our mission. And it is one we will fulfill.
Thank you,
President Barack Obama
Good news is that BP now reports some success in stopping the flow of oil. Information flows increase, oil flows decrease — good trends.
Caption from the White House: President Barack Obama talks with U.S. Coast Guard Commandant Admiral Thad Allen, who is serving as the National Incident Commander, and Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal, aboard Marine One as they fly along the coastline from Venice to New Orleans, La., May 2, 2010. John Brennan, Assistant to the President for Homeland Security and Counterterrorism, is in the background. (Official White House Photo by Pete Souza). (This official White House photograph is being made available only for publication by news organizations and/or for personal use printing by the subject(s) of the photograph. The photograph may not be manipulated in any way and may not be used in commercial or political materials, advertisements, emails, products, promotions that in any way suggests approval or endorsement of the President, the First Family, or the White House.)
Not having had to suffer through any of my lectures, Jim suggested me for Secretary of Education. As the powerless go, high school teachers and Secretary of Education are on a par. Sort of a lateral move.
Also, my list is way too laden with white dudes. I know that there are more women bloggers and bloggers of color who would enhance any cabinet, but I’m having a hard time coming up with those who have a distinct policy area — likely the fault of not reading widely enough.
Anyway, here are a few thoughts, but I definitely want to hear your line-ups.
Secretary of State – Josh Marshall – Why? Because I said so.
Secretary of Treasury – Atrios – Really is there any other choice
Sec. of Health and Human Services – Ezra Klein — who else is going to read all those regs.
Attorney General – Scott Lemieux — And no, not a fucking chance.
Secretary of Transportation – Matt Yglesias — Supertrain! (Or maybe HUD)
Secretary of the Interior – Our own minstrel hussein boy — He’s got the rez cred and he can cook.
EPA Director – litbrit – She’d be all over those pollutin’ muthafuckas
Secretary of Education – ari — Maybe he’d have to arm wrestle Eric Rauchway for it.
Secretary of Labor – Who do you think? Nathan Newman, of course.
Chairman of the EEOC – Pam Spaulding – (Chairperson?)
Chairman of the Fed – Bill McBride of Calculated Risk
National Endowment of the Arts – Roy Edroso
And how about Amanda as Chief of Staff — she’d be tough with the right people — and Markos as the DNC Chair.
How about your suggestions for fantasy blogger cabinet?
Best deal: Track those posts down. As I did, you’ll find some good blogs that should be on your reading list, but probably aren’t. Ideas, now those are powerful things.
Spread the word; friends don't allow friends to repeat history.
Social studies curricula climb the scaffold to the gallows set by the “conservative” majority of the Texas State Board of Education today. If they get their way — and signs are they will — they will hobble social studies education for at least a half generation.
As The Dallas Morning News explains this morning, lame-duck board members fully intend to change Texas and American culture with their rewriting of history, de-emphasis of traditional history education, and insertion of what they consider pro-patriotic ideas in social studies.
AUSTIN – When social conservatives on the State Board of Education put the final touches on social studies curriculum standards this week, it will be a significant victory in their years-long push to imprint their beliefs upon what Texas students learn.
We in the part-time blogosphere can’t cover the meeting as it deserves — nor have we been able to mobilize pro-education forces to do what was needed to stop the board — yet.
McLeroy will make the most of his remaining time on the panel. He proposed several additions to the social studies standards for the board to consider this week. One would require students to “contrast” the legal doctrine of separation of church and state with the actual wording in the Bill of Rights that bars a state-established religion.
McLeroy has resurrected the old Cleon Skousen/David Barton/White Supremecist argument that “separation of church and state” does not appear in the Constitution, disregarding what the document and its amendments actually say. Jefferson warned that such discussions poison children’s education, coming prematurely as this one would be as McLeroy wants it.
Watch that space. Tony Whitson at Curricublog will cover it well, and probably timely — read his stuff. Steve Shafersman’s work will be informative. The Texas Tribune offered great coverage in the past. Stay tuned. And the Texas Freedom Network carries the flag and works hard to recruit the troops and keep up morale.
It is discouraging. Under current history standards, Texas kids should know the phrase “shot heard ’round the world,” but they do not get exposure to the poem from which the phrase comes, nor to the poet (Emerson), nor exposure to Paul Revere whose ride inspired Longfellow later to write a poem that children have read ever since — except in Texas.
But under the new standards, Texas children will learn who Phyllis Schlafly is. Patriots are out; hypocrites and demagogues are in.
Spread the word; friends don't allow friends to repeat history.
I get e-mail from the NAACP; the rest of the nation is paying attention to the follies run by the conservative bureaucrats at the SBOE:
Ed,
I wouldn’t want to be a Texas State Board member this week.
Last week, we asked you to write to your representative, telling him or her that rewriting Texas history textbooks is ignorant and unpatriotic.
Over 1,500 people have already written in, filling the inboxes of our school leaders.
This week, we’d like to offer you one more chance to get involved. The NAACP is planning rallies, hearings and press conferences in Texas to stop the state board from rewriting history. But we can’t do it without you.
An issue as controversial as rewriting history elicits strong emotions, and we want to give you the chance to speak out. Do you have something you would like to say at the hearing?
The NAACP works to ensure equal rights and to eliminate discrimination against all racial and ethnic groups. The proposed changes to our textbooks threaten our mission. This is not about Republicans or Democrats — it’s about our shared history as Texans. That’s why we want to use the words of our Texas supporters to turn the tide.
The Texas textbook vote is just two weeks away, so we need to push ourselves harder now than ever before.
The future of our children’s education is in the hands of just a few State Board members. Your voice could be the one to tip the scale.
Take a moment to tell us what you think about the Texas State Board rewriting history. The best submissions will be read at the hearing on May 19th.
What about that impeachment trial, eh? Planning to watch it?
Your best bet might be C-SPAN, but I wouldn’t wager the mortgage were I you.
Impeachment trial of President Andrew Johnson in the U.S. Senate, 1868; from Harper's Weekly, April 11, 1868 - public domain
Federal Judge Thomas Porteous of New Orleans got four articles of impeachment approved against him by the U.S. House of Representatives on March 10. The first article got a nearly unanimous vote — who says the House is divided? — 412 to 0. Three other articles got similar margins, 410-0, 416-0, and 423-0.
Under its own special rules of impeachment, the Senate appointed a committee led by Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Missouri, which will hold the actual trial and report results to the full Senate for action. Sen. McCaskill said she expects the trial to begin in early August, and that the report to the full Senate could come as soon as September.
While news media and bloggers chase ghosts and hoaxes, real work continues in Washington, D.C. You just don’t hear much about it.
You likely have not heard of Judge Proteous’s troubles, though they are long-standing, because the issue was a local, Louisiana and New Orleans affair. Heaven knows New Orleans has had its share of other stories to knock off the front pages the ethical lapses of a sitting federal judge who was once a promising attorney.
Should you have heard? How can we judge? Should we not be concerned when a relatively important story is not only bumped to the back pages of newspapers, but bumped completely out of them, and off the radar of people who need to be informed about how well our government works?
My alert to this story came through a back-door route. On the list-serv for AP Government, someone asked who presides at the impeachment trial of the Chief Justice — remember, the Constitution spells out that the Chief Justice is the presiding officer in the impeachment of the President or Vice President. My memory is that the Senate rules on impeachments, and there is a committee that effectively presides, and that the impeachment of a Vice President or President merits special attention because the Vice President is the official, Constitutionally-mentioned presiding officer. We can’t have the vice president presiding at the trial of himself or herself, nor of the president. Looking up impeachment procedures, I stumbled across the pending impeachment of Judge Porteous. I don’t think it has appeared in our local newspaper, The Dallas Morning News.
Other judges have been impeached. Here in Texas, within the past three years, we had a federal judge impeached, Samuel Kent. You’d think Texas media would be sensitive to such stories. (Kent resigned before the trial could begin.)
I perceive that media are ignoring several important areas of federal governing, not necessarily intentionally, but instead by being distracted by nonentity stories or stories that just don’t deserve the inflated coverage they get. Among undercovered areas are the environment, energy research, higher education, foreign aid, management of public lands and justice, including indictments, trials and convictions. A vast gray hole where should be the news of Judge Porteous’s pending impeachment is just one symptom.
If you’re teaching world history, or art, or government, or environmental science, or geography, this might be a great blog to track.
Senegal is a very interesting place. Note on the map how it completely surrounds its neighbor nation of The Gambia.
Senegal, map courtesy of the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA)
France held the nation as a colony once upon a time, from 1850 to independence of the Mali Federation in 1960 — one of the national languages is French, but regional languages are numerous, Wolof, Soninke, Seereer-Siin, Fula, Maninka, and Diola. The Mali Federation was short-lived, and Senegal broke off in August of 1960.
If you listen to NPR, you’ve probably heard their reporter signing off in that distinct way she does, “Tthis is Ofeibea Quist-Arcton, for NPR, in Dah-KAHHH!” (Not to be confused with Dacca, Pakistan).
The French colonies of Senegal and the French Sudan were merged in 1959 and granted their independence as the Mali Federation in 1960. The union broke up after only a few months. Senegal joined with The Gambia to form the nominal confederation of Senegambia in 1982, but the envisaged integration of the two countries was never carried out, and the union was dissolved in 1989. The Movement of Democratic Forces in the Casamance (MFDC) has led a low-level separatist insurgency in southern Senegal since the 1980s, and several peace deals have failed to resolve the conflict. Nevertheless, Senegal remains one of the most stable democracies in Africa. Senegal was ruled by a Socialist Party for 40 years until current President Abdoulaye WADE was elected in 2000. He was reelected in February 2007, but has amended Senegal’s constitution over a dozen times to increase executive power and weaken the opposition, part of the President’s increasingly autocratic governing style. Senegal has a long history of participating in international peacekeeping and regional mediation.
The country is tropical, hot and humid. Geographically, it is low, rolling plains.
Dakar is about as far west as one can go on the African continent. (See the map inset — Senegal is in dark green).
Senegal has iron ores, and phosphorus (ancient bird droppings?). It’s not a rich nation, but it’s better off than many developing countries.
Adkins is in for a great adventure, no?
Africa, showing Senegal - CIA Factbook
Spread the word; friends don't allow friends to repeat history.
Informing Georgia Supreme Court Chief Justice Carol W. Hunstein that Georgia is a republic, not a democracy; recognizing the great differences between these two forms of government; and for other purposes.
WHEREAS, on March 16, 2010, Georgia Supreme Court Chief Justice Carol W. Hunstein appeared before the Georgia General Assembly for the State of the Judiciary address, and in her speech Chief Justice Hunstein mistakenly called the State of Georgia a democracy; and
WHEREAS, the State of Georgia is, in fact, a republic and it is important that all Georgians know the difference between a republic and a democracy -– especially the Chief Justice of the Georgia Supreme Court; and
WHEREAS, the word “republic” comes from the Latin res publica, which means “the public thing” or “the law,” while the word “democracy” comes from the Greek words demos and kratein, which translates to “the people to rule”; and
WHEREAS, most synonymous with majority rule, democracy was condemned by the Founding Fathers of the United States, who closely studied the history of both democracies and republics before drafting the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution; and
WHEREAS, the Founding Fathers recognized that the rights given to man by God should not be violated by an unrestrained majority any more than they should be restrained by a king or monarch; and
WHEREAS, it is common knowledge that the Pledge of Allegiance contains the phrase “and to the Republic”; and
WHEREAS, as he exited the deliberations of the so-called Constitutional Convention of 1787, Founding Father Benjamin Franklin told the awaiting crowd they have “A republic, if you can keep it”; and
WHEREAS, a republic is a government of law, not of man, which is why the United States Constitution does not contain the word democracy and mandates that “the United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a Republican Form of Government”; and
WHEREAS, in 1928, the War Department of the United States defined democracy in Training Manual No. 2000–25 as a “government of the masses” which “[r]esults in mobocracy,” communistic attitudes to property rights, “demagogism, … agitation, discontent, [and] anarchy”; …
NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED BY THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES that the members of this body recognize the difference between a democracy and a republic and inform Georgia Supreme Court Chief Justice Carol W. Hunstein that the State of Georgia is a republic and not a democracy….
Tip of the scrub brush to the Volokh Conspiracy, where you’ll find erudite and entertaining comment, and where Eugene Volokh wrote:
Now maybe this is just a deep inside joke, but if it’s meant to be serious then it strikes me as the worst sort of pedantry. (I distinguish this from my pedantry, which is the best sort of pedantry.)
Whatever government Georgia has, and whatever government the English language has, it is not government by ancient Romans, ancient Greeks, the War Department Training Manual, or even the Pledge of Allegiance. “Democracy” today includes, among other meanings, “Government by the people; that form of government in which the sovereign power resides in the people as a whole, and is exercised either directly by them (as in the small republics of antiquity) or by officers elected by them. In mod. use often more vaguely denoting a social state in which all have equal rights, without hereditary or arbitrary differences of rank or privilege.” That’s from the Oxford English Dictionary, but if you prefer the American Heritage Dictionary, try “Government by the people, exercised either directly or through elected representatives.” Government by the people’s representatives is included within democracy, as is government by the people directly.
“Joke” is an accurate description, but one that escapes the sponsors and irritates the impedants on the Texas SBOE.
When legislatures have too much time on their hands, and engage in such hystrionics, one wonders whether the legislature wouldn’t be better off left in the dark by not inviting the views of the Chief Justice in the future. Perhaps the Chief Justice should decline any invitation offered.
What we now know is that some Georgia legislators are all het up about the difference between a republic and a democracy, though I’ll wager none of them could pass an AP world history or European history quiz on Rome and Greece. And what is really revealed is that some Georgia legislators don’t know their burros from a burrow.
You can also be sure of this: Such action is exactly what the so-called conservatives on the Texas SBOE wish to have happen from their diddling of social studies standards.
Spread the word; friends don't allow friends to repeat history.
The frequently quotable Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., circa 1930. Edited photograph from the Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division. Original photo by Harris & Ewing. LC-USZ62-47817. Copyright expired.
I like paying taxes. With them I buy civilization.
Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., attributed. (see Felix Frankfurter, Mr. Justice Holmes and the Supreme Court, Harvard University Press, 1961, page 71.)
I found reference to the quote in a book about eminent economists, through Google Scholar:
Eminent Economists: Their Life Philosophies
By Michael Szenberg
Published by Cambridge University Press, 1993
320 pages
On page 201, Szenberg refers Holmes’s view of “taxation as the price of liberty.” In a footnote, he points to Justice Frankfurter’s book. The quote is dolled up a little. According to Szenberg’s footnote:
More precisely, he rebuked a secretary’s query of “Don’t you hate to pay taxes?” with “No, young fellow, I like paying taxes, with them I buy civilization.”
Frankfurter is a reliable source. It’s likely Holmes said something very close to the words Friedman used.
Here’s another opportunity to put real, cutting edge technology in your classroom. In fact, your kids could probably invent all sorts of new uses for it.
Have you even heard of this stuff? Can you use it, live, with the equipment you’ve got?
Blaise Aguera y Arcas of MicroSoft demonstrated augmented-reality maps using the power of Bing maps, Flickr, Worldwide Telescope, Video overlays and Photosynth, to an appreciative and wowed audience at TEDS:
My prediction: One more advance in computer technology that classrooms will not see in a timely or useful manner.
But have you figured out how to use this stuff in your geography, history, economics or government classes? Please tell us about it in comments. Give examples and links, please.
Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) — Obama’s EPA, we can say, now — announced today it will review pet flea and tick products, to prevent abuse and errors of use.
The flea and tick lobby will be upset, of course. Will the rabid Nobamistas join them? I expect someone will complain that this is creeping socialism, unless they say it’s running communism.
Before they get too far down that road, let’s note that pet ownership, and pet protection, were not exactly a high priority of the Soviet Union, nor are they great concerns of the Peoples Republic of China, nor of the Peoples Republic of Korea, nor Cuba, nor Vietnam. On the political continuum, protecting pets from pesticide abuse is about as bourgeois as it gets, rather the opposite of socialism.
How badly do the heathen want to yowl? Watch that space.
A couple of months can make a big difference. Can.
A difference which way?
Two months ago the Texas State Board of Education suspended its revamping of social studies standards — the efforts to grind the standards into a right-wing crutch were so controversial that hearings, discussion and amending proposed standards took up more time than allotted. SBOE delayed final votes until March 10.
How will those primary losses affect them and their work on the board?
In addition, other members of the culture war ring are retiring, including Cynthia Dunbar. Will the lame ducks be content to vote up the changes urged by history and economic professionals and professional educators, or will they do as McLeroy suggested they need to do earlier, and fight against the recommendations of experts?
Most of us watching from outside of Austin (somebody has to stay back and grade the papers and teach to the test . . .) expect embarrassments. On English and science standards before, the culture war ring tactics were to make a flurry of last-minute, unprinted and undiscussed, unannounced amendments apparently conspired to gut the standards of accuracy (which would not make the right wing political statements they want) and, too often, rigor. Moderates on the board have not had the support mechanisms to combat these tactics successfully — secret e-mail and telephone-available friends standing by to lend advice and language on amendments. In at least two votes opponents of the culture war voted with the ring, not knowing that innocent-sounding amendments came loaded.
In a test of the No True Scotsman argument, religious people will be praying for Texas kids and Texas education. Meanwhile, culture warriors at SBOE will work to frustrate those prayers.
Oy.
Thomas Jefferson toyed with the idea of amendment the U.S. Constitution to provide a formal role for the federal government in guaranteeing education, which he regarded as the cornerstone of freedom and a free, democratic-style republic. Instead, American primary and secondary education are governed by more than 15,000 locally-elected school boards with no guidance from the national government on what should be taught. Alone among the industrial and free nations of the world, the U.S. has no mechanism for rigorous national standards on what should be taught.
For well over a century a combined commitment to educating kids better than their parents helped keep standards high and achievement rising. Public education got the nation through two world wars, and created a workforce that could perform without peer on Earth in producing a vibrant and strong economy.
That shared commitment to quality education now appears lost. Instead we have culture warriors hammering teachers and administrators, insisting that inaccurate views of Jefferson and history be taught to children, perhaps to prevent them from ever understanding what the drive for education meant to freedom, but surely to end Jeffersonian-style influences in the future.
Texas’s SBOE may make the case today that states cannot be trusted with our children’s future, and that we need a national body to create academic rigor to preserve our freedom. Or they will do the right thing.
Voters last week expressed their views that SBOE can’t be trusted to do the right thing. We’re only waiting to see how hard McLeroy is willing to work to put his thumb in the eye of Big Tex.
Texas Freedom Network gives you the background; watch TFN’s blog, TFN Insider, for more timely updates (heck, head over there now and learn a lot about today’s meeting). When you read the New York Times piece, you noted incisive comments by Kathy Miller — she’s the director of TFN. TFN is the tape that has held together the good parts of education standards so far, against the swords of the culture warriors. TFN’s blog will probably be updated through the meeting.
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 
EPA posts greenhouse gas reporting requirements
June 29, 2010What’s that racket, that squealing, that ‘stuck’ pig noise?
Space-filling model of sulfur hexafluoride (SF6) - Wikimedia image. Sulfur hexafluoride is one of the most powerful greenhouse gases known, with "global warming potential" 22,800 times that of CO2. EPA proposes to measure SF6 emissions as a first step toward reducing emissions. Warming deniers propose to stop the regulations.
EPA published regulations for measuring greenhouse gases as part of its CO2 emission regulatory program — and the noise is the reaction of the anti-warmists.
Here’s EPA’s press release — notice the links to longer explanations, and note especially that the regulations are not final yet, but are instead open for public comment.
These regulations are those complained about and proposed to be stopped by critics of the campaign to stop global warming. Alaska’s pro-warming Sen. Lisa Murkowski introduced a resolution to stop these regulations, with the support of junk science lobbyists including the National Center for Policy Research. Fortunately, on June 10 the Senate voted 47-53 to reject a motion to consider the resolution, S. J. Res. 26, “A joint resolution disapproving a rule submitted by the Environmental Protection Agency relating to the endangerment finding and the cause or contribute findings for greenhouse gases under section 202(a) of the Clean Air Act.”
Both of Texas’s senators were suckered by the junk science. Sen. John Cornyn and Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison both co-sponsored the losing resolution. Texas Gov. Rick Perry and Attorney General Greg Abbott filed suit to stop the regulations. Abbott’s opponent in the 2010 elections, Barbara Ann Radnofsky, probably the only one of these Texans who might understand sulfur hexafluoride’s role as a pollutant, criticized the suit and urged Abbott to spend his time protecting Texas oil fields from oil company sabotage.
Help control emissions from climate “skeptics,” and spread the good word:
Spread the word; friends don't allow friends to repeat history.