Mark Twain in 1907 - A.F. Bradley, New York, copyright, Mark Twain, three-quarter length portrait, seated, facing slightly right, with cigar in hand 1907. Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress
October. This is one of the peculiarly dangerous months to speculate in stocks in. The others are July, January, September, April, November, May, March, June, December, August, and February.
This is a great collection for U.S. history presentations on development of the railroads, or on settlement of the west, in particular.
The Railroad maps represent an important historical record, illustrating the growth of travel and settlement as well as the development of industry and agriculture in the United States. They depict the development of cartographic style and technique, highlighting the achievement of early railroaders. Included in the collection are progress report surveys for individual lines, official government surveys, promotional maps, maps showing land grants and rights-of-way, and route guides published by commercial firms.
Heck, if nothing else, these make great backgrounds for PowerPoint presentations.
Bookmark the site — kids working on projects specific to a state or region should have a field day with these things.
Spread the word; friends don't allow friends to repeat history.
Sure enough, as soon as we turned the gas on to the computer and the screen warmed up, what should pop up but a group claiming to be opposed to junk science and arrogant ignorance, but arrogantly spreading the ignorance of junk science: Climate Change Fraud, “The Crichtonian Green.”
I caught the site with a news reader that looks for idiocy about DDT. This is the line the automoton caught:
“DDT is not a carcinogen…the DDT ban has caused the deaths of tens of millions of poor people…”
Among the anti-science crowds, this stuff is holy writ. Dogma insists that scientists are craven political creatures driven to silly programs that waste money and hurt poor people. Never mind the facts. They believe it religiously — and they treat efforts to educate them as assaults on their faith.
DDT is a well-established carcinogen in animals, including mammals, and every cancer-fighting agency on Earth lists DDT as a probable human carcinogen. The various “bans” on DDT all allow DDT to be used to protect poor people against disease, but DDT’s overuse by its advocates led to rapid evolution of resistance and immunity in insects targeted by DDT — DDT use was stopped when it stopped being effective. Inaction on the part of DDT advocates, and their unwillingness to use other methods to fight malaria, have been culprits in the too-slow program to reduce malaria among poor people. Spraying DDT advocates with DDT will do absolutely nothing to get them off their butts to act.
(Go to the search feature on this blog, search for “DDT.” The truth is out there.)
Oy. This is how the week starts?
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* No, I never did get a Millard Fillmore soap-on-a-rope; but it makes a good gambit to open a post, don’t you think?
Spread the word; friends don't allow friends to repeat history.
In the first of the 2008 debates between presidential candidates, Sen. John McCain pointed to Gen. Dwight Eisenhower’s two letters, written on the eve of the D-Day invasion in June 1944. One letter would be released. The first letter, the “Orders of the Day,” commended the troops for their work in the impending invasion, giving full credit for the hoped-for success of the operation to the men and women who would make it work.
The second letter was to be used if the invasion failed. In it, Eisenhower commended the troops for their valiant efforts, but said that the failure had been in the planning — it was all Eisenhower’s fault. (It was not a letter of resignation.)
In a few short sentences, Eisenhower commended the courage and commitment of the troops who, he wrote, had done all they could. The invasion was a chance, a good chance based on the best intelligence the Allies had, Eisenhower wrote. But it had failed.
The failure, Eisenhower wrote, was not the fault of the troops, but was entirely Eisenhower’s.
He didn’t blame the weather, though he could have. He didn’t blame fatigue of the troops, though they were tired, some simply from drilling, many from war. He didn’t blame the superior field position of the Germans, though the Germans clearly had the upper hand. He didn’t blame the almost-bizarre attempts to use technology that look almost clownish in retrospect — the gliders that carried troops behind the lines, the flotation devices that were supposed to float tanks to the beaches to provide cover for the troops (but which failed, drowning the tank crews and leaving the foot soldiers on their own).
There may have been a plan B, but in the event of failure, Eisenhower was prepared to establish who was accountable, whose head should roll if anyone’s should.
Eisenhower took full responsibility.
Our landings in the Cherbourg-Havre area have failed to gain a satisfactory foothold and I have withdrawn the troops. My decision to attack at this time and place was based upon the best information available. The troop, the air [force] and the navy did all that bravery and devotion to duty could do. If any blame or fault attaches to the attempt, it is mine alone.
Who in the U.S. command would write such a thing today?
It was a case of the Supreme Commander, Allied Forces, taking upon himself all responsibility for failure.
McCain has called for the resignation of the chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission, which he points to as part of his plan for accountability. The analogy fails, I think. The proper analogy would be George Bush taking blame for the current financial crisis. In his speech earlier this week, Bush blamed homebuyers, mortgage writers, bankers and financiers. If Bush took any part of the blame himself, I missed it.
I wonder if McCain really understands the Eisenhower story. I still wonder: Who in the U.S. command would write such a thing today?
Spread the word; friends don't allow friends to repeat history.
The 3rd Infantry Division’s 1st Brigade Combat Team has spent 35 of the last 60 months in Iraq patrolling in full battle rattle, helping restore essential services and escorting supply convoys.
Now they’re training for the same mission — with a twist — at home.
* * * * *
They may be called upon to help with civil unrest and crowd control or to deal with potentially horrific scenarios such as massive poisoning and chaos in response to a chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear or high-yield explosive, or CBRNE, attack.
Training for homeland scenarios has already begun at Fort Stewart and includes specialty tasks such as knowing how to use the “jaws of life” to extract a person from a mangled vehicle; extra medical training for a CBRNE incident; and working with U.S. Forestry Service experts on how to go in with chainsaws and cut and clear trees to clear a road or area.
The 1st BCT’s soldiers also will learn how to use “the first ever nonlethal package that the Army has fielded,” 1st BCT commander Col. Roger Cloutier said, referring to crowd and traffic control equipment and nonlethal weapons designed to subdue unruly or dangerous individuals without killing them.
“It’s a new modular package of nonlethal capabilities that they’re fielding. They’ve been using pieces of it in Iraq, but this is the first time that these modules were consolidated and this package fielded, and because of this mission we’re undertaking we were the first to get it.”
The package includes equipment to stand up a hasty road block; spike strips for slowing, stopping or controlling traffic; shields and batons; and, beanbag bullets.
“I was the first guy in the brigade to get Tasered,” said Cloutier, describing the experience as “your worst muscle cramp ever — times 10 throughout your whole body.
“I’m not a small guy, I weigh 230 pounds … it put me on my knees in seconds.”
The brigade will not change its name, but the force will be known for the next year as a CBRNE Consequence Management Response Force, or CCMRF (pronounced “sea-smurf”).
“I can’t think of a more noble mission than this,” said Cloutier, who took command in July. “We’ve been all over the world during this time of conflict, but now our mission is to take care of citizens at home … and depending on where an event occurred, you’re going home to take care of your home town, your loved ones.”
You read it right. The Army is coming to “take care of you in your home town.”
Were they being deployed to rebuild New Orleans, I’d regard it as a noble undertaking. Am I wrong to worry about what is up with this?
You won’t find it phrased that way in any of the textbooks, but it would improve the telling of history of World War I if we did tell it that way. This retelling promises to be a good one.
It might improve race relations in the U.S., too.
The story of the Harlem Hellfighters, the 369th Infantry Regiment, and their bravery and fighting acumen in World War I, make for a gripping day of war stories, if you’re looking for stories of heroism.
The piece just premiered — I hope some lucky recording company has the good sense to take the tapes of the Dallas Symphony’s performances this past week, and release them quick.
And also on that day, the U.S.S. Maddox reported it had been attacked by gunboats of the North Vietnamese Navy, in the Gulf of Tonkin. The Gulf of Tonkin incident led to the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, which gave Johnson the authority to expand and escalate the war in Vietnam, which he did.
The Dallas Symphony commissioned the work, from composer Steven Stucky and librettist Gene Scheer, in commemoration of President Johnson’s 100th birth anniversary — he would have been 100 on August 27.
The music is outstanding, especially for a modern piece. The Dallas Symphony was at its flashiest and most sober best, under the baton of new conductor Jaap van Zweden. It was a spectacular performance. According to the New York Times:
Mr. van Zweden, hailed in his debut as music director a week before, scored another triumph here. And the orchestra’s assured and gritty performance was rivaled by that of the large Dallas Symphony Chorus, both corporately and individually, in shifting solo snippets charting the course of the fateful day.
The strong cast, mildly amplified, was robustly led by the Johnson of Robert Orth, last heard as another president in John Adams’s “Nixon in China” in Denver in June. Laquita Mitchell and Kelley O’Conner, wearing period hats, were touching as Mrs. Chaney and Mrs. Goodman. Understandably, the taxing role of a high-strung McNamara took a small toll on the tenor of Vale Rideout in his late aria.
The entire thing deserves more commentary, perhaps soon. There is stellar history in the choral piece. And there is this: Consider that Lyndon Johnson, the best legislator and second most-effective executive we ever had as president, got hit with these two crises the same day. On the one hand the nation got the Voting Rights Act, the Fair Housing Act, executive orders and government support to end segregation and the evils it created. On the other hand, we got stuck with the disaster of the Vietnam War.
How would the nation fared had a lesser person been in the White House on that day?
Spread the word; friends don't allow friends to repeat history.
It’s counterintuitive, but it might work. As lawyers, we see a lot of people who would rather hide their histories than have them known more broadly. But in the public relations game, we see professionals helping to polish the image and the stories of organizations and people. Why not do it for yourself?
Perhaps, with professional help, you can find the narrative of your own history that will give you the hope, tenacity and guts to change your life for the better?
Seriously, check out the guy’s site. He proposes several solutions for problems we have all faced — capturing history from terminally ill relatives, will-making, resolving end-of-life concerns, and simply recording the family history for posterity.
Spread the word; friends don't allow friends to repeat history.
2008: I wasn’t ready to blog about it today. Texas requires one day of instruction on the Constitution in every social studies class. In government today, it happened to fit. We discussed the Constitution earlier in world history, and we will return to it at various points through the year.
Spread the word; friends don't allow friends to repeat history.
A smaller, less-highly regarded force of Athenians faced a larger, better trained, more experienced army of Persians. Sparta’s promised reinforcements had not yet arrived.
And yet the Greeks triumphed over the Persians at Marathon. How?
Two Greek generals followed the dictates of Santayana, whose ghost couldn’t exist because his corporeal existence was nearly 2,500 years in the future — they studied history, and they made plans to avoid the errors others had made in the past.
The two Athenian commanders, Callimachus and Miltiades (the latter having fought in the Persian army himself), used their knowledge of Persian battle tactics to turn the tide further in their favor. As the clatter of spears, swords and shields echoed through the valley, the Greeks had ensured that their best hoplites (heavily armed infantry) were on the flanks and that their ranks were thinned in the center. Persian battle doctrine dictated that their best troops, true Persians, fought in the center, while conscripts, pressed into service from tribute states, fought on the flanks. The Persian elite forces surged into the center of the fray, easily gaining the ascendancy. But this time it was a fatal mistake. The Persian conscripts whom the Hellenic hoplites faced on the flanks quickly broke into flight. The Greeks then made another crucial decision: Instead of pursuing their fleeing foes, they turned inward to aid their countrymen fighting in the center of the battle.
By then, the Persians were in a state of utter confusion. Their tactics had failed, their cavalry was absent and their archers were useless. Their more heavily armed and armored opponents, who could sense that victory was close, were attacking them from three sides and pushing them into the sea. The Persians fled back to their ships. Many of the Athenians, buoyed by their success, dragged several of the Persian vessels to shore, slaughtering those on board.
When the day was over, the Greeks had won one of history’s most famous victories, claiming to have killed about 6,400 Persians for the loss of only 192 Athenians. The Spartans eventually arrived, but only after the battle was long over. To assuage their disbelief in the Athenians’ victory, they toured the battlefield. To their amazement, they found the claim of victory was indeed true. The Athenians had defeated the most powerful empire in the Western world.
It was a great victory. The Athenians had been so certain of defeat, however, that they had made plans to burn Athens and have Athenians left behind commit suicide rather than be captured by the Persians. In order to prevent the plans from going through, they needed one more tremendous piece of history, and they called on their runner:
With time of the essence, the Athenians dispatched Pheidippides to inform Athens’ populace of their victory before the troops arrived. The tale goes that after running the 26 miles from Marathon to Athens, Pheidippides exclaimed: “Rejoice! We conquer!” then died from exhaustion. Whether true or not, that is the source of the modern-day marathon race; the distance of the modern race reflects the distance Pheidippides ran.
I opened world history this year asking how many had seen the movie “300.” It produced some excitement, which I was glad to see. Not enough students knew that it was based on a real battle. We recounted the story of the victories at Thermopylae and Salamis, and then told the story of the set up for that war, the Greek victory at Marathon. It was just after the Olympics closed — tying the battles to the last event of the Olympics, in honor of Pheidippides, made for a great class, for me. For the students? I hope so.
One of my intended learning points was that history is about the stories, not about memorizing dates and places. Stories, they like. Dates and places, not so much.
Another point: History is all around us, even when we play couch potato and just watch the Olympics.
I knew I’d scored when a student asked me after class whether I knew when this year’s marathon would be rebroadcast, so she could watch it.
Spread the word; friends don't allow friends to repeat history.
My children lived to see a Boston Red Sox win in the World Series, already in their short lives.
100-year old Cubs fan Richard Savage, who saw the Cubs lose the World Series to the Boston Red Sox in 1918, hopes to see the Cubs win a World Series - AARP Bulletin Today
With the triumph, the Cubs pushed Milwaukee nine games back in the National League Central race and a half-game behind the New York Mets in the wild-card playoff race while reducing their own magic number to four.
“We just figure if we keep winning ballgames, good things will come for us,” Dempster said. “Don’t get caught up in the standings or numbers or anything like that. Just come to the ballpark and try to win every day. This is big.”
High school students weren’t alive when Yellowstone burned in 1988. Do you remember?
NASA infrared satellite photograph of Yellowstone fires in 1988
It was a conflagration that made hell look like good picnicking. 1988 was a particularly dry summer, and hot. Lightning and human carelessness ignited fires across western North America. Five huge fires raged out of control, and burned huge swaths out of forests in Yellowstone National Park that probably hadn’t seen fire in 80 years, maybe longer.
Old Faithfull erupts against background of smoke from 1988 fires - NPS photo by Deanna Marie Dulen
The 1988 fires made history in several ways; it was the first time so many fires had burned simultaneously. Ultimately some of the fires merged into even greater conflagrations. The fires forced the shutdown of tourism and other activities in the Park. Inadequacies in fire fighting equipment, staffing and policies were highlighted and displayed in newspapers and on television for weeks, forcing changes in policies by cities, states and the federal government.
Some good came out of the fires. Much undergrowth and dead wood had choked off plant diversity in some places in the Park. The fires opened new meadows and offered opportunities for some species to expand their ranges.
Scientifically, a lot of information came out of the fires. The mystery of when aspen would seed out was solved — new aspen seedlings appeared in areas where the fires had sterilized the ground with extremely high temperatures that seemed to trigger the seeds to germinate.
Our visits in 1989 offered a lot of opportunities to look at very bleak landscapes.
Yellowstone National Park in 1989, a year after the big fires - Copyright 1989 and 2008, Ed Darrell
Recover of the forested areas began rather quickly, but will take time to cover over all the scars of the fires.
Hidalgo himself was captured by the Spanish in 1811, and executed.
It’s a great story. It’s a good speech, what little we have of it (Hidalgo used no text, and we work from remembered versions).
Why isn’t there a good 10- to 15-minute video on the thing for classroom use? Get a good actor to do the speech, it could be a hit. Where is the video when we need it?
Statue of Father Hidalgo in Dolores, Mexico.
Update for 2008: Glimmerings of hope on the video front: Amateur videos on YouTube provide some of the sense of what goes on in modern celebrations.
And, see this re-enactment from Monterrey:
Spread the word; friends don't allow friends to repeat history.
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 