Taking from the poor to give to the rich, 1979-2007

August 14, 2012

For honest seekers of economic truth, the question about what went wrong that led to the recent great economic collapse has deep roots — but not complicated roots.

Our increases in wealth came at the expense of the poor and especially middle class, and they went to the tiny fraction of people at the very top who now own much of your nation.

Redistribution of wealth, Paul Krugman from CBO figures

Paul Krugman’s graphic of redistribution of wealth in the U.S., figures from the Congressional Budget Office

Our most vocal Nobel-winning economist, Paul Krugman noted at his blog:

The top quintile excluding the top 1 percent – which is basically the abode of the well-educated who aren’t among the very lucky few – has only kept pace with the overall growth in incomes. Just about all of the redistribution has taken place from the bottom 80 to the top 1 (and we know that most of that has actually gone to the top 0.1).

Much of our current difficulty in climbing out of recession can be told from this chart.  People who would normally be spending money for food, gasoline, clothing, cars, home repairs and incidentals, simply don’t have the money to spend.  Consequently, demand is down.  Consequently, the top 1% will not invest their money in the U.S. to meet that non-existent demand.  This is the ultimate failure of “supply-side” economics writ large.  The very rich can consume only so much.  Additional wealth stashed away, even in domestic accounts, will not be spent for more food, or more housing, or more transportation.  Even the very rich can eat only so much, travel so much, and few of them behave exactly like Saddam Hussein, with palaces they will never even see.  Meanwhile, the bottom 80%, which includes the middle class, lacks money to spend on education, housing, durable goods, and transportation — despite needing more of all of those things.

Below the fold, the CBO report’s highlights press release, from the Congressional Budget Office.

Read the rest of this entry »

4 Comments | Economics, Free market economics, Freedom - Economic, History, Income Distribution | Tagged: , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

August 13, 1961: Berlin Wall

August 13, 2012

51 years ago today.

Soviet-bloc communism disabused us of a lot of ideas, including pointing out that when the amplification was turned up a lot, even Robert Frost could be wrong in the voice of his farmer and neighbor character, because high, concrete and concertina wire fences don’t make good neighbors.

A rock wall in Vermont, like the one Robert Frost wrote about -Wikimedia image

A rock wall in Vermont, like the one Robert Frost wrote about -Wikimedia image

Of course, even in demonstrating Frost in error, the communists made the opening clause of “Mending Fences” more poignant: “Something there is that doesn’t love a wall . . .”

Residents of Berlin awoke on August 13, 1961, to discover that the Soviet-dominated East Germany had begun constructing a wall across Berlin, to keep East Berlin residents from escaping the clutches of communism and walking to freedom in West Berlin.

This year I saw a mock up of part of the Berlin Wall next to an exhibit honoring Winston Churchill at the Trout Museum of Art in Appleton, Wisconsin.  A few days later I saw actual portions of the wall, mounted for permanent display at the National Churchill Museum on the Churchill Center in Fulton, Missouri.  A few days later, I saw more sections of the wall, with one of the 300+ guard towers, at the Newseum, in Washington, D.C.  On Each occasion I was reminded of my own  trip to the Wall in 1987, finding next to the boarded-up Reichstag eight wreaths, honoring the eight people who were known to have died trying to cross the wall in the previous six months.

Something there is that doesn’t love a wall.  That something is freedom.

Please see other Bathtub posts on the topic:

And remember the poet’s telling, “Something there is that doesn’t love a wall.”

A wall Robert Frost would not love - Berlin Wall at Potsdamer Platz, November 1975, from West Berlin - Wikimedia photo

A wall Robert Frost would not love – Berlin Wall at Potsdamer Platz, November 1975, from West Berlin – Wikimedia photo

Other resources:

9 Comments | Berlin Wall, Cold War, Communism, Freedom - Economic, Freedom - Political, History, Winston Churchill | Tagged: , , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

August 13, 1923: Hemingway’s first book

August 13, 2012

Cover to Hemingway's "Three Stories and Ten Poems," published August 13, 1923 - Wikipedia image

Cover to Hemingway’s Three Stories and Ten Poems, published August 13, 1923 – Wikipedia image, from University of Delaware

Do you subscribe to Today in Literature?  Perhaps you should.  Today we learn:

On this day [August 13] in 1923 Ernest Hemingway published his first book, Three Stories and Ten Poems. This was an edition of 300 copies, put out by friend and fellow expatriate, the writer — publisher Robert McAlmon. Both had arrived in Paris in 1921, Hemingway an unpublished twenty-two-year-old journalist with a recent bride, a handful of letters of introduction provided by Sherwood Anderson, and a clear imperative: “All you have to do is write one true sentence.”

More about Hemingway, much more about literature, at Today in Literature.

More:

1 Comment | Books, History, Literature | Tagged: , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

Willie Nelson Blvd.

August 12, 2012

 

Willie Nelson Blvd, Austin, Texas - IMGP2228 photo by Ed Darrell (please attribute)

Waiting for the bats in Austin, and I looked up to find I was on Willie Nelson Boulevard!

A star on the sidewalk in Hollywood is nice, I suppose.  But how many recording or film artists get streets named after them in the capital city of their home state?

And, can you list that as a good reference on your sentencing report on a possession charge?

Details, from the Austin American-Statesman:

2nd Street renamed for Willie Nelson

By Sarah Coppola | Thursday, May 27, 2010, 10:55 AM

Part of Second Street will now bear the honorary name Willie Nelson Boulevard.

The City Council approved the change this morning as a tribute to the singer, who has lived in the Austin area nearly 40 years and sold more than 50 million records.

The city will install Willie Nelson Boulevard signs this summer at every block along Second Street from Trinity Street to San Antonio Street. The formal name, mailing addresses and street signs for Second Street will stay the same, but residents and businesses along the street will be able to receive mail using the Willie Nelson Boulevard address, said Mayor Lee Leffingwell, who proposed the idea.

A nonprofit group, Capital Area Statues, is raising money to put a full-size statue of Nelson on Second Street, in front of the new Austin City Limits studio. That nonprofit commissioned the sculpture and unveiled a smaller version of it earlier this month.

More Willie Nelson

Leave a Comment » | History, Music, Texas, Texas Music, Travel | Tagged: , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

Romney/Ryan: U.S. can’t afford to be great any more

August 11, 2012

Democrats assembled some quick looks at federal budgeting with Paul Ryan and Mitt Romney:

Someone with a handle LLORT3 maybe put it concisely:  “We need healthcare, not wealthcare.”

The lines for the election seem to me to very well drawn:  Back to the Gilded Age, or on to the 21st century.

What do you think?  Did Romney just double down on a Marie Antoinette economy?  Will more than 20% of Americans vote to screw the middle class like that?

Related information:

21 Comments | 2012 Campaigns, 2012 Elections, Barack Obama, Government, History, Medicare | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

EPA photograph exhibit in Dallas: Progress in environmental protection?

August 8, 2012

Let’s see what history shows.  EPA started a photographic record of environmental conditions, in 1971.  Recently the project gained light again with help of the National Archives.  Parts of the record are touring the country, and the display is available in Dallas for a week (photos added):

National “Documerica” Environmental Photo Exhibit Comes to Dallas

(DALLAS – August 7, 2012) The Environmental Protection Agency will open “Documerica” exhibit of photographs depicting environmental conditions of the past and present beginning August 7, 2012. The display arrives in Dallas after a quick stop in Austin at the Texas Environmental Superconference as part of its national tour. The exhibit will be open on the 7th Floor at Fountain Place in downtown Dallas through August 14, 2012.

(From the Documerica-1 Exhibition. For Other I...

One of the photos in the Documerica archives, looking to me to be from Texas, along Texas’s Colorado River (I have no idea whether this is one of the photographs displayed) (From the Documerica-1 Exhibition. For Other Images in This Assignment, See Fiche Numbers 27, 28, 31, 32, 33.) (Photo credit: The U.S. National Archives)

From its development in 1971, “Documerica” became the United States’ first serious pictorial examination of the environment. The project collected more than 15,000 images, documenting the environmental and human conditions of this country when EPA was starting its mission. The idea was to visually record the difference in conditions in later years, providing the public with a measurement of progress made to accomplish goals set by Congress.

Forty years later the project was rediscovered with the help of National Archives. “State of the Environment” launched Earth Day 2011 as an opportunity for the public to participate and engage in a modern revitalization of Documerica. There are more than 1,900 new images that have been submitted to EPA through Flickr.

The EPA photo project will continue accepting submissions through the end of 2013. Public entries will be considered for a larger exhibit of both projects set for March-September 2013 at the U.S. National Archives’ Lawrence F. O’Brien Gallery in Washington, D.C.

-30-

To learn more and to follow the project, visit: www.epa.gov/stateoftheenvironment
To match images near you, a selection of the full record is available on the National Archives Flickr photostream

More about activities in EPA Region 6 is available at http://www.epa.gov/aboutepa/region6.html

Can I make time to go?

Fountain Place, in Dallas; image from Dallas Architecture

EPA’s art exhibit is on the 7th floor of Fountain Place, this building, usually listed at 1445 Ross Avenue. It’s between the Woodall Rodgers Freeway and Ross Avenue, between North Field Street and North Akard Street, Metered parking may be available; it should be a not-too-difficult walk from the West End, if done before the temperature rises above 95 degrees (as it is predicted to do each day in the next week).

The building that houses the exhibit is a landmark in Dallas, designed by I. M. Pei; fountains and trees grace the base of the building.  If you’re not a denizen of daytime downtown Dallas, it might be worth a trip to see.

Alas, the fleeting nature of the stay in Dallas means it will be long gone before any environmental science classes can be assigned to view it.

Fortunately the photographs are available on Flickr — teachers, will you let us know what devious assignments you make out of this collection of historic photographs?

Additional Resources: 

Leave a Comment » | Art, Dallas, Environment, Environmental protection, History, History and art, History images, photography | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

Typewriter of the moment: LBJ’s teleprompter typewriter

August 6, 2012

LBJ Library photo by Mike Geissinger

July 27, 1967, in preparations for President Lyndon B. Johnson’s televised address to the Nation concerning civil unrest in American cities, an unidentified White House Staff member types President Johnson’s address for a teleprompter – LBJ Library photo by Mike Geissinger, public domain (Other sizes of photo available at LBJ Library site)

The first personal computers were more than a decade away.  Today’s teleprompters — a computer screen mounted to reflect into a glass in front of a television camera lens — had not been conceived.  Teleprompters were cathode-ray tube televisions attached to a massive television camera with a clunky device.  The image would be reversed to reflect correctly.  Into that television would be a closed-circuit feed of a scrolling piece of paper on which was typed, in very large letters, the script the speaker was to read.  In this case, of course, the speaker was the President of the United States, Lyndon B. Johnson.

In 1967, a special typewriter was required to type out the oversized-font, easy-to-read script on a roll of paper with sprocket holes along the side to enable an automated scrolling.

Just looking at the equipment for the technology of the time is an education.

Schematic of teleprompter system, from Wikimedia Commons

Schematic of teleprompter system:
1. Video camera
2. Shroud
3. Video monitor
4. One-way mirror
5. Image from subject
6. Image from video monitor

Teleprompters allow someone reading a script to look directly into the television camera lens, giving an impression to a viewer that the person is speaking directly to them, instead of glancing down at a script and back at a camera.  Research showed viewers tend to grow disinterested in people looking down at a script, and would more likely be engaged by someone appearing to look at them.

Teleprompters existed in the 1950s, but many local television stations did not use them until into the 1960s — news broadcasts of the time often featured the anchors reading from written scripts on a desk in front of the broadcaster.  A few intrepid news anchors, throwbacks to a more theatrically-inclined era, would memorize an entire script every night.

The schematic is based on modern, smaller television cameras and modern, thin devices to project the word images.  Older versions were larger — sometimes much larger.

Ed Mason as a studio technician, adjusting the teleprompter before a local broadcast - WCIA TV (Illinois) circa 1957

Ed Mason as a studio technician, adjusting the teleprompter before a local broadcast, WCIA television, Channel 3 in Champaign, Illinois; photos from site of DougQuick.com, an on-line tour of history of broadcasting

One popular version put a simple paper scroller mounted above the lens of the very large, studio television cameras — a broadcaster’s eyes could focus an inch above the lens, and viewers couldn’t tell he or she was not looking directly into the lens.

Modern teleprompter mounted on television camera, circa 2005 - Wikipedia image

Modern teleprompter mounted on television camera, circa 2005; text is projected from a thin screen on the top of the camera lens – Wikipedia image

Teleprompters emerged as a symbolic political whipping device in the early 21st century. Partisans wishing to impugn the intelligence of a politician complain that he or she cannot speak extemporaneously, without a script. Oddly, the charge was rarely leveled at President Ronald Reagan, famous for his use of scripts in almost every situation. Reagan’s White House pushed modernizing of the technical devices employed at the White House, including the latest in teleprompter devices.

The most frequently-seen politician-used teleprompters today are simple stands, “conference” teleprompters, designed as much to allow a speaker to use teleprompters with a live audience as to facilitate television use.  The devices are simple stands with a highly-reflective, clear plastic or glass on the top, and computer screen on the floor shining up.

A modern,

A modern, “conference” teleprompter of the style usually seen at public appearances by politicians.

Modern teleprompters cost a fraction of earlier versions.  Everybody uses them now — I’ve even heard of first-time candidates who did not have to go to teleprompter school.

Here I am, reading from a teleprompter at the George H. W. Bush Library and Museum in College Station, Texas, in 2011:

Ed Darrell tries out the Presidential podium and teleprompter

Here I am trying out the teleprompter and podium at the George H. W. Bush Library and Museum, College Station, Texas, in 2011.

And more people using teleprompters, with years in captions, so far as I can get them.

Teleprompter script used by President Kennedy; JFK Library collection, image by thewastesmile

Teleprompter script used by President John F. Kennedy, from Kennedy Library collection; image by a private party.

President Reagan using a teleprompter, in speech from the Oval Office - undated

President Reagan often used teleprompters — in a computerized form by then.

Teleprompter in use: LBJ addresses the nation prior to signing the Civil Rights Act of 1964, on July 2, 1964 - LBJ Library and Museum photo

Teleprompter in use:  In the White House East Room, President Lyndon B. Johnson used a teleprompter to address the nation in a live television broadcast, just before he signed the 1964 Civil Rights Act. People watching include Attorney General Robert Kennedy, Senator Hubert Humphrey, First Lady “Lady Bird” Johnson, Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., F.B.I. Director J. Edgar Hoover, Speaker of the House John McCormack. Television cameras are broadcasting the ceremony.

A more modern use:

Judy Licht using a teleprompter in a broadcast from Italy.

Broadcaster Judy Licht using a teleprompter in broadcast or taping from Piazza Duomo, Milan, Italy, in September 2007.

1 Comment | History, Lyndon B. Johnson, Technology, Television, Typewriters | Tagged: , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

Gold medal to NASA and JPL: Mars mission succeeds against overwhelming odds

August 6, 2012

Curiosity is on the ground.

What were the odds?  What did NASA and Jet Propulsion Laboratories (JPL) need to overcome?   Watch this:

Did that astonshingly Rube Goldberg-looking set of devices work?

Here’s the news, from NBC’s science editor Alan Boyle:

PASADENA, Calif. — After eight years of planning and eight months of interplanetary travel, NASA’s Mars Science Laboratory pulled off a touchdown of Super Bowl proportions, all by itself. It even sent pictures from the goal line.

The spacecraft plunged through Mars’ atmosphere, fired up a rocket-powered platform and lowered the car-sized, 1-ton Curiosity rover to its landing spot in 96-mile-wide (154-kilometer-wide) Gale Crater. Then the platform flew off to its own crash landing, while Curiosity sent out a text message basically saying, “I made it!”

That message was relayed by the orbiting Mars Odyssey satellite back to Earth. A radio telescope in Australia picked up the message and sent it here to NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. When the blips of data appeared on the screens at JPL’s mission control, the room erupted in cheers and hugs.

Congratulations!  We need good news, and this is great news.

So far as I can tell, no U.S. television network covered the event live in Pasadena.  What a shame.

More:

2 Comments | History, NASA, Science, Space exploration | Tagged: , , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

Port Isaac, Cornwall: Depends on your point of view

August 5, 2012

What you see in this photo may depend on where you sit, or stand.

Aerial photo of Port Isaac, from Facebook, August 2012

Aerial photo of Port Isaac, Cornwall, from Facebook, August 2012; attributed to Wimp.com

It’s a photo of a town in Cornwall, England:  Port Isaac.  Lovely photo, showing the verdant hills around the town where grains grow in some abundance (the town’s name means “corn port,” suggesting a thriving grain trade a millennium ago), sheep or other animals graze, and showing the port from which fishermen sail to bring in bounty from the oceans.  The picturesque little town is popular among writers and other artists.  It’s historic and quaint streets make a popular backdrop for television and film production — the popular BBC series “Doc Martin” films there.

Since some internet “cool stuff” site (Wimp.com?  I can’t find it there) picked up the photo, it’s become popular around the internet and on Facebook.  Generally the identifiers for the town get stripped away as the ‘net is wont to do.  So conjecture pops up in comments:

English: Roscarrock Hill, Port Isaac The first...

Roscarrock Hill, Port Isaac The first house on the right is Fern Cottage, made famous as the house of Doc Martin, in the TV series of the same name. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

  • Secret town, cut off from the rest of civilization?
  • Wasn’t that area once forested, and doesn’t the photo show the perils of deforestation for agricultural, or any other purposes? “Many moons ago before humanity it was beautifully covered with pristine forests full of life. It’s now a self-centred disaster brought by humanity…this pic is ugly !”
  • Isn’t it idyllic, and who wouldn’t want to live there?  “This looks like Cornwalls beautiful rocky edge of the world,I just love the area and holiday there most years,maybe one day i will have saved enough to retire there ,it is truly a stunningly wonderful place to be come rain or shine.”
  • If only there were no people there!  “our planet earth is still beautiful you just have to look at it from a distance.”
  • See how the town is sprawling into the pastures?  See the dangers of (small-town) urban sprawl?
  • London is prettier.
  • You should see Ireland/Wales/Norway!

Ugly or beautiful — opinions differ depending on what the poster thinks it is, and what the poster thinks s/he knows about the place.

Perhaps its really a shot of Rohrshach, Norway . . .

More:

Cornwall

Rohrshach?  Do you see the face?  (It’s actually Cornwall (Photo credit: joeflintham))

3 Comments | Geography - Physical, Geography - Political, History, Humor, photography, psychology, Travel | Tagged: , , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

UFOs? GOP says ‘you gotta believe’ – Primer on Voter ID laws and their gross injustice

August 3, 2012

Quoted completely from Bill Moyers’ site; he makes the case clearly:

Moyers & Company | The Hollow Defense of Voter ID Laws

UFO Sightings Are More Common Than Voter Fraud

August 2, 2012

by Hamed Aleaziz, Dave Gilson and Jaeah Lee, Mother Jones

We’re proud to collaborate with Mother Jones in sharing graphs and charts that reveal truth about voting obstacles. Scroll down for stats and facts related to efforts to restrict voting, the prevalence of voter ID laws, what discourages new voters and the the pervasive fiction of voter fraud.

BLOCK THE VOTE

Since 2001, nearly 1,000 bills that would tighten voting laws have been introduced in 46 states.

24 voting restrictions have passed in 17 states since 2011. This fall, new laws could affect more than 5 million voters in states representing 179 of the 270 electoral votes needed to win the presidency.

In the past two years, 5 battleground states (Florida, Iowa, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin) have tightened their voting laws.

As of April, 74 restrictive voting laws were on the table in 24 states.

Sources: Brennan Center for Justice, NAACP

CARD-CARRYING AMERICANS ONLY

Since 2011, 34 states have introduced laws requiring voters to show photo ID, and 9 states have passed photo ID laws, affecting 3.8 million voters.

2.2 million registered voters did not vote in 2008 because they didn’t have proper ID.

*Does not include laws awaiting DOJ clearance, blocked by courts, or not in effect until after 2012. Source: National Conference of State Legislatures

Last year, 12 states introduced laws requiring birth certificates or other proof of citizenship to vote; 3 passed.

Only 48 percent of women have a birth certificate with their current legal name on it.

Texas’ new ID law permits voters to use concealed-handgun licenses as proof of identity, but not state university IDs.

Sources: Brennan Center for Justice; Gabriel R. Sanchez, Stephen A. Nuño, and Matt A. Barreto

DISCOURAGING NEW VOTERS

80 percent of the 75 million eligible voters who did not take part in the 2008 election were not registered to vote.

In 2008, more than 1/3 of voters cast ballots before Election Day. In 2011, 5 states passed bills to restrict early voting.

States with Election Day registration have 7 to 12 percent greater turnout than states without. Last year, 5 states introduced bills that eliminate Election Day registration.

12 percent of minority voters report registering through voter drives, twice the rate of white voters. In 2011, Florida and Texas passed laws making registration drives much harder to organize.

Florida state Sen. Mike Bennett, a supporter of the tougher voter registration law, said, “I don’t have a problem making it harder. I want people in Florida to want to vote as bad as that person in Africa who walks 200 miles across the desert. This should not be easy.”

Source: Caltech/MIT Voting Technology Project

LOCKING OUT EX-CONS

4 million Americans who have completed prison sentences are ineligible to vote. 38 percent of disenfranchised voters are African American.

13 percent of African-American men cannot vote due to criminal records, a rate 7 times the national average.

The United States and Belgium are the only democracies that disenfranchise citizens for lengthy or indefinite periods after completing prison sentences.

To regain their voting rights, released felons in Iowa must provide the address of the judge who convicted them and a credit report showing they have paid off their court costs. “They make the process just about impossible,” said a 40-year-old ex-con who’d stolen a soda machine as a teen.

IN SEARCH OF STOLEN VOTES

dog voting

While defending its precedent-setting photo ID law before the Supreme Court, Indiana was unable to cite a single instance of voter impersonation in its entire history.

A 2005 report by the American Center for Voting Rights claimed there were more than 100 cases of voter fraud involving 300,000 votes in 2004. A review of the charges turned up only 185 votes that were even potentially fraudulent.

In support of a voter ID law, Kansas Secretary of State (and the legal brains behind a slew of anti-immigration laws) Kris Kobach cited 221 incidents of voter fraud in the state between 1997 and 2010. Yet those cases produced just 7 convictions — none related to impersonating other voters.

Last December, Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus declared that Wisconsin is “absolutely riddled with voter fraud.” In fact, the state’s voter fraud rate in 2004 was 0.0002 percent — just 7 votes.

In 2008, John McCain said fraudulent registrations collected by ACORN were “one of the greatest frauds in voter history in this country, maybe destroying the fabric of democracy.” The Congressional Research Service found no proof that anyone improperly registered by ACORN tried to vote.

Federal convictions for election fraud, 2002-05

  • Voting while ineligible: 18
  • Voting multiple times: 5
  • Registration fraud: 3

UNIDENTIFIED FLYING OBJECTS

Dog and UFO

Between 2000 and 2010, there were:

649 million votes cast in general elections

47,000 UFO sightings

441 Americans killed by lightning

13 credible cases of in-person voter impersonation

Special hat tip to craigconnects.org

Additional sources:

  • A 2005 report by the American Center for Voting Rights…: The Myth of Voter Fraud by Lorraine C. Minnite
  • 13 credible cases…: Justin Levitt, Loyola Law School

From the show

Related Features:

So there’s the case in a nutshell — a large, meaty nut’s shell.

More: 

8 Comments | Civil Rights, History, Law, Politics, Voting, Voting Rights Act | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

Quote of the moment: Hemingway, writers need “shock-proof, [excrement] detector”

July 30, 2012

Ernest Hemingway and cat Cristobal, Cuba; JFK Library collection

Ernest Hemingway with his cat, Cristobal, at his home, Finca Vigia, San Francisco de Paula, Cuba.  Date unknown (circa 1955?) Photo from Ernest Hemingway Collection, John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum, Boston. (Copyright status unknown)

Was Ernest Hemingway the greatest writer in English of the 20th century?  Fortunately we don’t have to choose.  We can read Hemingway, and Faulkner (with whom he had a few bones to pick), and Hammett, and Parker, and Feynman, and Vonnegut, Bellow, Morrison, dos Passos,  Shaw, Kipling, Ford, Conrad and a dozen more, enjoying each for the gifts she or he demonstrated so well on a page.

Any way you stack it, though, Hemingway was a great one.

In an interview with George Plimpton, published in the Paris Review in 1958, Hemingway talked about what it takes to be a great writer.  Maybe it’s something one needs to be born with:

The most essential gift for a good writer is a built-in, shock-proof, shit detector. This is the writer’s radar and all great writers have had it.

If we could make a machine to substitute for that, a solid-gold, built-in, shock-proof [excrement] detector, we could improve writing, politics, government, business, and a hundred other fields of endeavor.

If we had a just and appropriately skeptical world, everyone would have one, a “solid gold, built-in, shock-proof [excrement] detector.”

What an enormous If.

Also at Millard Fillmore’s Bathtub:

6 Comments | Books, Famous quotes, History, Literature, Quotes, Writing | Tagged: , , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

Propaganda posters: J. C. Leyendecker’s Uncle Sam at bat (fit for August)

July 28, 2012

Get in the game with Uncle Sam, WWI poster by J. C. Leyendecker, Museum of Play image

“Get in the Game with Uncle Sam” poster from World War I, by J. C. Leyendecker in 1917 — image from National Museum of Play

No matter how much the Texas State Board of Education wishes to run away from America’s heritage, we can’t.

Nor should we want to.

Propaganda is not a bad word.  There is bad propaganda, stuff that doesn’t work.  There is propaganda for bad purposes, stuff that promotes bad policies, or evil.  But good propaganda is stronger, long-lasting, often full of great artistic merit, and instructive.

Images of Uncle Sam provide clear pictures of what Americans were thinking, from the oldest versions to today.

This poster above is a World War I poster designed to convince Americans to get involved in the war effort.  J. C. Leyendecker, a noted illustrator, cast Uncle Sam as a baseball player up to bat.  The poster says simply, “Get in the game with Uncle Sam.”  Perhaps uniquely, this poster showed Sam in yellow-striped pants, instead of the more traditional red-striped.  Could an artist take such liberty today?

Nicolas Ricketts at the Strong Museum of National Play offered a good, concise description of the politics and history of the poster at the blog for the Museum (links added for your convenience):

Meanwhile, then-president Woodrow Wilson, who had won reelection in 1916 on an anti-war platform, faced the need for American participation in the terrible “Great War” raging in Europe. He and his cabinet knew that American involvement loomed. But how could the government convince the American public that this was necessary? One idea was to create a poster that urged Americans to metaphorically “Get in the Game,” along with their patriotic national symbol, Uncle Sam.

Artist J. C. Leyendecker (1874-1951) designed the poster, commissioned by the Publicity Committee of the Citizens Preparedness Association, a pro-war organization with federal support which also sponsored “preparedness parades” and other nationalistic activities. Leyendecker himself emigrated from Germany at age eight and was approaching the pinnacle of his career in 1917 when he created this work.

The poster just preceded James Montgomery Flagg’s famous “I Want You” image of Uncle Sam, which later became the best-known likeness of the country’s unofficial symbol. Leyendecker’s version, in spite of his baseball bat, is possibly less affable to contemporary eyes than Flagg’s friendlier Sam. But the bat he holds connected him to many Americans, who perhaps then decided that America should “get in the game.”

Some of this older propaganda had a humorous twist I think is too often missing from modern posters.  It was more effective for that, I think.

The image of Sam at bat shows up in many places in the internet world, but most often stripped of its identifying links to Leyendecker.  That does disservice to the art, to history, and to Leyendecker, who was one of our nation’s better illustrators for a very long time.

Visit the National Museum of Play in Rochester, New York.

Related articles

More posters, almost random, found through Zemanta:

English: Uncle Sam recruiting poster.

The most famous Uncle Sam recruiting poster, by James Montgomery Flagg (1917). (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

James Montgomery Flagg 1917 poster: "Boys...

James Montgomery Flagg 1917 poster: “Boys and girls! You can help your Uncle Sam win the war – save your quarters, buy War Savings Stamps” / James Montgomery Flagg . (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

1 Comment | 1914-1918, Art, History, Posters, Propaganda, Uncle Sam, World War I | Tagged: , , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

Louisiana plans to use vouchers to teach creationism

July 27, 2012

News from the National Center for Science Education — I get e-mail, and it’s probably best to pass it along quickly, unedited, except for links in the text of the article, and the photo of Zack Kopplin, which I added:

VOUCHERS FOR CREATIONISM IN LOUISIANA?

Louisiana is about to spend almost twelve million dollars to fund the teaching of creationism, charges Zack Kopplin, famous for organizing the effort to repeal the so-called Louisiana Science Education Act. In Kopplin’s sights now is a controversial new voucher program in the state that uses public school funds to pay for tuition and certain fees at private schools for students who attend low-performing public schools and whose family income is below 250% of the federal poverty level. When the Board of Elementary and Secondary Education considered a set of accountability guidelines for such private schools at its July 24, 2012, meeting, Kopplin testified that of the roughly 6600 spaces available for students under the program, 1350 will be filled, as the Lafayette Independent Weekly(July 26, 2012) described it, “at private Christian schools that teach creationism and peg evolution as ‘false science.’”

Zack Kopplin, brave teen fighting for good science education in Louisiana

Zack Kopplin, brave teen fighting for good science education in Louisiana

According to the Alexandria Town Talk (July 25, 2012), “A number of the schools on the voucher list teach creationism, a doctrine that holds that God created all life out of nothing, and either don’t mention the theory of evolution or teach that it is false science. State Board of Elementary and Secondary Education [BESE] policy on teaching science requires that public schools teach what is in textbooks but they can supplement with BESE-approved material to promote ‘critical thinking’ on alternatives to evolution.” Superintendent of Education John C. White told the newspaper that BESE had approved the curriculum for all of the schools. “Not teaching evolution could show up in the required state testing for students receiving vouchers, he said, and there could be repercussions ‘if a school shows a fundamental disregard’ for conducting the test.”

Writing earlier in the New Orleans Times-Picayune (July 18, 2012) about Kopplin’s research on the private schools expected to receive new students through the voucher program, columnist James Gill commented, “It is impossible to prepare fully for such a massive reform as going voucher, and some undeserving private schools are bound to receive an OK from harried state officials. But a religious takeover on this scale cannot be accidental. Of the schools on Zack Kopplin’s list, one believes that scientists are ‘sinful men,’ and declares its view ‘on the age of the earth and other issues is that any theory that goes against God’s word is in error.’ Another avers that evolution is ‘extremely damaging to children individually and to society as a whole.’ A third tells students to write an essay explaining how ‘the complexity of a cell shows it must be purposefully designed.’ And so it goes.”

The creationist instructional material used by such schools include textbooks from Bob Jones University Press and A Beka Books — which were described by the University of California system in the ACSI v. Stearns case as “inappropriate for use as primary texts in college preparatory science courses due to their characterizations of religious doctrine as scientific evidence, scientific inaccuracies, failure to encourage critical thinking, and overall un-scientific approach” — and Accelerated Christian Education. A textbook from ACE that argued against evolution on the grounds that the Loch Ness monster not only exists but also is a living plesiosaur (incorrectly described as a dinosaur) understandably attracted the attention of The Scotsman (June 25, 2012) and was widely ridiculed nationally and internationally.

The voucher program is presently under legal challenge from the Louisiana Association of Educators and the Louisiana Federation of Teachers along with a number of local school boards. But the issue of the state’s funding the teaching of creationism is not part of the challenge. Rather, as the New Orleans Times-Picayune (July 10, 2012) explained, “Two key issues are at play in the voucher suit: whether providing private schools with money from the Minimum Foundation Program violates the [Louisiana state] constitution by redirecting those funds from public schools, and whether a last-minute vote setting the new MFP formula in place received enough support in the state House to carry the force of law.” The state will be allowed to implement the voucher program while the challenge works its way through the court system, the newspaper reported.

For the article in the Lafayette Independent Weekly, visit:
http://www.theind.com/news/11055-kopplin-state-paying-116m-to-schools-teaching-creationism

For the article in the Alexandria Town Talk, visit:
http://www.thetowntalk.com/article/20120725/NEWS01/120725003/Louisiana-vouchers-going-mainly-church-affiliated-schools

For James Gill’s column in the New Orleans Times-Picayune, visit:
http://www.nola.com/opinions/index.ssf/2012/07/vouchers_are_a_creationists_be.html

For NCSE’s collection of material from ACSI v. Stearns, visit:
http://ncse.com/creationism/legal/acsi-v-stearns

For the article in The Scotsman, visit:
http://www.scotsman.com/news/odd/loch-ness-monster-cited-by-us-schools-as-evidence-that-evolution-is-myth-1-2373903

For the article on the challenge to the voucher program in the New
Orleans Times-Picayune, visit:
http://www.nola.com/politics/index.ssf/2012/07/judge_denies_injunction_in_vou.html

And for NCSE’s previous coverage of events in Louisiana, visit:
http://ncse.com/news/louisiana

With all the troubles Louisiana has, with rebuilding from storms, a dysfunctional food distribution system, a dysfunctional health care distribution system, clean up from the Gulf oil spill of 2010, and erosion problems especially in the Gulf bordering parishes, why is Louisiana wasting time and brain power on creationism?

More information:

2 Comments | Creationism, Education, Evolution, History, National Center for Science Education, Politics, Vouchers, War on Education, War on Science | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

Obama a socialist? You’re kidding, of course . . . Milos Forman

July 24, 2012

Wrote movie director Milos Forman, for The New York Times:

Milos Forman, PBS image

Milos Forman, PBS image, American Masters

When I was asked to direct One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, my friends warned me not to go anywhere near it. The story is so American, they argued, that I, an immigrant fresh off the boat, could not do it justice. They were surprised when I explained why I wanted to make the film. To me it was not just literature but real life, the life I lived in Czechoslovakia from my birth in 1932 until 1968. The Communist Party was my Nurse Ratched, telling me what I could and could not do; what I was or was not allowed to say; where I was and was not allowed to go; even who I was and was not.

Now, years later, I hear the word “socialist” being tossed around by the likes of Rick Perry, Newt Gingrich, Rick Santorum, Sean Hannity, Rush Limbaugh and others. President Obama, they warn, is a socialist. The critics cry, “Obamacare is socialism!” They falsely equate Western European-style socialism, and its government provision of social insurance and health care, with Marxist-Leninist totalitarianism. It offends me, and cheapens the experience of millions who lived, and continue to live, under brutal forms of socialism.

. . . Whatever his faults, I don’t see much of a socialist in Mr. Obama or, thankfully, signs of that system in this great nation.

Tip of the old scrub brush to Fred Clark writing at Slacktivist.

More information:

17 Comments | Economics, History, Socialism | Tagged: , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

July 24 – reflecting on a day of arrivals

July 24, 2012

July 24 – almost the end of the month, but not quite.  In Utah, July 24 is usually a state holiday, to celebrate the date in 1847 that the Mormon refugees arrived in Salt Lake Valley and began to set up their agriculture and schools.  In Salt Lake City, bands from across the state and floats from many entities form the “Days of ’47” Parade.  When I marched with the Pleasant Grove High School Viking Band, the route was  5 miles.  We had only one band uniform, for winter — I lost nearly 10 pounds carrying a Sousaphone.

Ah, the good old days!

From various “Today in History” features, AP, New York Times, and others:

Buzz Aldrin walks on the moon, July 20, 1969

Buzz Aldrin walks on the moon, July 20, 1969 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

July 24, 1969: Apollo 11 returned to the Earth, and splashed down in the Pacific Ocean, Michael Collins, Buzz Aldrin and Neil Armstrong — Aldrin and Armstrong having landed on the Moon.

July 24, 1847: A larger contingent of Mormons, refugees from a literal religious war in Illinois and Missouri, entered into the Salt Lake Valley under the leadership of Brigham Young, who famously said from his wagon sick-bed, “This is the place; drive on!”

Mormon Tabernacle Choir, and organ

Would there be a Mormon Tabernacle Choir, and organ, had the Mormons settled somewhere other than Utah? Wikipedia photo

July 24, 1866: Tennessee became the first of the Confederate States, the former “state in rebellion,” to be readmitted fully to the Union, following the end of the American Civil War.

July 24, 2005: Lance Armstrong won his seventh consecutive Tour de France bicycle race.

English: Cropped image of Richard Nixon and Ni...

Nixon advance man William Safire claimed later than he’d set up the famous “debate” between Eisenhower’s Vice President Richard Nixon and Soviet Communist Party Premier Nikita Khrushchev, at the American National Exhibition in Moscow, 1959. Nixon argued that the technology on display made better the lives of average Americans, not just the wealthiest. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

July 24, 1959: Visiting Moscow, USSR, to support an exhibit of U.S. technology and know-how, Vice President Richard Nixon engaged Soviet Communist Party Secretary and Premier Nikita Khruschev in a volley of points about which nation was doing better, at a display of the “typical” American kitchen, featuring an electric stove, a refrigerator, and a dishwasher.  Khruschev said the Soviet Union produced similar products; Nixon barbed  back that even Communist Party leaders didn’t have such things in their homes, typically, but such appliances were within the reach of every American family.  It was the “Kitchen Debate.”

Cover of Time Magazine, July 22, 1974, explaining the showdown between President Richard Nixon and the Special Prosecutor, playing out in the U.S. Supreme Court. Image copyright by Time Magazine.

July 24, 1974: In U.S. vs. Nixon, The U.S. Supreme Court ruled unanimously that President Richard Nixon had to turn over previously-secret recordings made of conversations in the White House between Nixon and his aides, to the special prosecutor appointed to investigate the Watergate affair and cover-up.  Nixon would resign the presidency within two weeks, the only president to leave office by resignation.

July 24, 1975: An Apollo spacecraft splashed down after a mission that included the first link-up of American and Soviet spacecraft.  (The Apollo mission was not officially numbered, but is sometimes called “Apollo 18″ — after Apollo 17, the last trip to the Moon.)

More information:

5 Comments | Apollo Project, History, Moon, Richard M. Nixon, Space Race | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

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