. . . which accompany this now eerie picture.
Toppling Dictators in Arab world
Actually, I hear tell of a cartoon that looks more like the earlier photo, with a fellow walking away after having crossed out the images of Ali and Mubarak . . . anyone got a link?
Leave a Comment » | 
Cartoons, History, Political cartoons | Tagged: Arab Spring, Cartoons, History, Political cartoons | 
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Posted by Ed Darrell
A film from the Pare Lorentz Center and FDR Library:
This film, produced by the Pare Lorentz Center at the Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library and Museum, commemorates the 75th Anniversary of Social Security. The film asks the question: Is it still Our Plain Duty?
Big question. Do we have an obligation to continue Social Security, especially now that everyone has a pension from their employer, no one has any difficulty getting access to health care, there are no homeless people in the streets, and no older Americans live and die in poverty?
25 Comments | Economics, FDR, Franklin Roosevelt, History, New Deal, Politics, Social Security | Tagged: Economics, FDR, History, New Deal, Politics, Roosevelt Library, Social Security | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
We get to choose.
We can choose, if we know there are choices, and how to distinguish between them.
Do we know there are choices? Can we distinguish?
Wish I’d seen this little film a couple of years earlier; but it’s more poignant now, perhaps, that Zinn is no longer with us.
It’s a film from Henry Holt and Metropolitan Books, made to promote Zinn’s 2008 book, A People’s History of American Empire. This is how the film is described at the Holt site at YouTube:
Empire or Humanity?
What the Classroom Didn’t Teach Me about the American Empire
by Howard Zinn
Narrated by Viggo Mortensen
Art by Mike Konopacki
Video editing by Eric WoldTo read more from Howard Zinn visit http://www.TomDispatch.com.
A serious student of U.S. history should always consider the view of Howard Zinn on an issue or period. Teachers of history must consider Zinn’s views, agree or disagree.
2 Comments | Books, History, Imperialism, War | Tagged: Books, Empire, History, Howard Zinn, Imperialism, War | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
October 31 hosts several famous anniversaries. It is the anniversary of Nevada’s statehood (an October surprise by Lincoln for the 1864 campaign?). It is the anniversary of the cleaving of western, catholic Christianity, as the anniversary of Martin Luther’s tacking his 95 theses to the door of the church in Wittenburg, Germany in 1517, the formal start of the Reformation. Maybe the original Christian trick or treat.
U.S.S. Reuben James sinking, October 31, 1941 - National Archives photo
October 31 is also the anniversary of the sinking of the World War I era Clemson-class, four-stack destroyer, U.S.S. Reuben James, by a German U-boat. Woody Guthrie memorialized the sad event in the song, Reuben James, recorded by the Almanac Singers with Pete Seeger (see also here, and here), and later a hit for the Kingston Trio. The Reuben James was sunk on October 31, 1941 — over a month before the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. Details via Wikipedia (just to make you school librarians nervous):
USS Reuben James (DD-245), a post-World War I four-stack Clemson-class destroyer, was the first United States Navy ship sunk by hostile action in World War II and the first named for Boatswain’s Mate Reuben James (c.1776–1838), who distinguished himself fighting in the Barbary Wars.
This history figured into the 20088 presidential campaign in a small way: One of the internet hoax letters complaining about Barack Obama claimed that the U.S. entered World War II against Germany although the Germans had not fired a single round against the U.S. The 115 dead from the crew of 160 aboard the James testify to the inaccuracy of that claim, wholly apart from the treaty of mutual defense Germany and Japan were parties to, whichencouraged Germany to declare war upon any nation that went to war with Japan. After the U.S. declaration of war on Japan, Germany declared war on the U.S., creating a state of war with Germany.
This history also reminds us that many Americans were loathe to enter World War II at all. By October 1941, Japan had been occupying parts of China for ten years, and the Rape of Nanking was four years old. The Battle of the Atlantic was in full swing, and the Battle of Britain was a year in the past, after a year of almost-nightly bombardment of England by Germany. Despite these assaults on friends and allies of the U.S., and the losses of U.S. ships and merchant marines, the U.S. had remained officially neutral.
Many Americans on the left thought the sinking of the Reuben James to be the sort of wake-up call that would push Germany-favoring Americans to reconsider, and people undecided to side with Britain. The political use of the incident didn’t have much time to work. Five weeks later Japan attacked Pearl Harbor, and by the end of 1941, the U.S. was at war with the Axis Powers.
Letter to the U.S. Navy asking the fate of friends aboard the U.S.S. Reuben James, November, 1941
Telegram informing his family of the death of Gene Guy Evans, of Norfolk, Virginia, lost in the torpedoing of the U.S.S. Reuben James
The Kingston Trio sings, as the names of the dead scroll:
This is mostly an encore post from 2008. Brad DeLong at Berkeley is “live blogging” World War II, and referred to the 2008 post for his entry for October 31, which drove a little traffic this way and reminded me to memorialize the crew again — tip of the old scrub brush to Dr. DeLong
http://delong.typepad.com/sdj/2011/10/liveblogging-world-war-ii-october-31-1941-1.html
More:
- Entry for USS Reuben James in the U.S. Navy’s Dictionary of American Fighting Ships:
- Reuben James
Reuben James was born in Delaware about 1776. During the Quasi-War with France, Boatswain’s Mate James participated in Constellation’s victories over the French ships L’Insurgente, 9 February 1799, and La Vengeance. During the Barbary Wars, he served aboard Enterprise and accompanied Stephen Decatur into the harbor at Tripoli on 16 February 1804, as Decatur and his men burned the captured American frigate Philadelphia to prevent Tripoli from using her in battle. In the ensuing skirmish, an American seaman positioned himself between Decatur and an enemy blade. This act of bravery was attributed to Reuben James and to Daniel Frazier. For the rest of the war, James continued to serve Decatur aboard Constitution and Congress. During the War of 1812, he served in United States, under Decatur, and in President. On 15 January 1815, however, President was defeated by the British and James was taken prisoner. After the war, he resumed service with Decatur, aboard Guerriere, and participated in the capture of the 46-gun Algerian flagship Mashouda on 17 June 1815. After peace was made with the Barbary states, James continued his service in the Navy until declining health brought about his retirement in January 1836. He died on 3 December 1838 at the U.S. Naval Hospital in Washington, D.C.
I
(DD – 245: displacement 1,215; length 314’5”; beam 31’8”; draft 9’4”; speed 35 knots; complement 101; armament 4 4”, 1 3”, 12 21” torpedo tubes; class Clemson)
Reuben James (DD-245) was laid down 2 April 1919 by New York Shipbuilding Corp., Camden, N.J.; launched 4 October 1919; sponsored by Miss Helen Strauss; and commissioned 24 September 1920, Comdr. Gordon W. Haines in command.
Assigned to the Atlantic Fleet, Reuben James sailed from Newport, R.I., 30 November 1920 to Zelenika, Yugoslavia, arriving 18 December. During the spring and summer of 1921, she operated in the Adriatic and the Mediterranean out of Zelenika and Gruz, Yugoslavia, assisting refugees and participating in postwar investigations. In October 1921 at Le Havre, she joined Olympia (C-6) at ceremonies marking the return of the Unknown Soldier to the United States. At Danzig, Poland, from 29 October 1921 to 3 February 1922, she assisted the American Relief Administration in its efforts to relieve hunger and misery. After duty in the Mediterranean, she departed Gibraltar 17 July 1922.
Based then at New York, she patrolled the Nicaraguan coast to prevent the delivery of weapons to revolutionaries in early 1926. In the spring of 1929, she participated in fleet maneuvers that foreshadowed naval airpower. Reuben James decommissioned at Philadelphia on 20 January 1931.
Recommissioned 9 March 1932, she again operated in the Atlantic and the Caribbean. From September 1933 to January 1934 she patrolled Cuban waters during a period of revolution. Sailing for the Pacific from Norfolk 19 October 1934, she arrived at her new homeport of San Diego, Calif., 9 November. Following maneuvers that evaluated aircraft carriers, she returned to the Atlantic Fleet in January 1939. Upon the outbreak of war in Europe in September 1939, she joined the Neutrality Patrol, and guarded the Atlantic and Caribbean approaches to the American coast.
In March 1941, Reuben James joined the convoy escort force established to promote the safe arrival of war materials to Britain. This escort force guarded convoys as far as Iceland, where they became the responsibility of British escorts. Based at Hvalfjordur, Iceland, she sailed from Argentia, Newfoundland, 23 October 1941, with four other destroyers to escort eastbound convoy HX-156. While escorting that convoy, at about 0525, on 31 October 1941, Reuben James was torpedoed by German submarine U-562. Her magazine exploded, and she sank quickly. Of the crew, 44 survived, and 115 died. Reuben James was the first U.S. Navy ship sunk by hostile action in World War II.
25 September 2005
2 Comments | 1941-1945, Battle of the Atlantic, Famous Battles, History, World War II | Tagged: 1941-1945, Battle of the Atlantic, DBQ, Folk Music, History, October 31, U.S.S. Reuben James, Woody Guthrie, World War II | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
Air pollution texts often made the note, but I’ve not seen it talked about much recently: Air pollution in the U.S. (and England) was so bad in the first years of the 20th century that it actually shut out the sun, and an epidemic of rickets followed.
Child with rickets, son of relief client near Jefferson, Texas. This child has never talked though he is two years old. He has never received any medical attention. Lee, Russell, 1903-1986, photographer. CREATED/PUBLISHED 1939 Mar. More information about the FSA/OWI Collection is available at http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/pp.fsaowi; CALL NUMBER LC-USF34- 032719-D REPRODUCTION NUMBER LC-USF34-032719-D DLC (b&w film neg.)
Public health officials, clever devils, discovered a form of vitamin D that prevented rickets. It turns out that humans manufacture vitamin D from cholesterol, using ultraviolet B from the sun. So, when the sun was smokily eclipsed, rickets proliferated.
In an era when technical and legal tools were inadequate to clean up the air pollution, physicians, nutritionists and researchers struck on the idea of supplementing food with vitamin D — and that is how we come to have vitamin D-fortified milk today, and a lot less rickets.
I was happy to find a publication at the National Institutes of Health that relates this history, at least in part, “Solar Ultraviolet Radiation and Vitamin D: A Historical Perspective,” by Kumaravel Rajakumar, MD, Susan L. Greenspan, MD, Stephen B. Thomas, PhD, and Michael F. Holick, MD, PhD, in American Journal of Public Health, October 2007, Vol 97, No. 10.
At the dawn of the 20th century, the expansive industrialization and urban migration in the major cities of western Europe and the northern United States set the stage for the high prevalence of rickets among infants residing in those polluted and “sunless” cities. Overcrowded living conditions in the big-city slums and tenements and the sunlight deprivation precipitated by atmospheric pollution from smoke and smog were responsible for a rickets epidemic. Increased ozone concentration from industrial pollution and the haze and clouds from atmospheric pollution compromise vitamin D production by absorbing the UV-B photons essential for its synthesis.
* * * * *
Edwards Park states, “But for rickets vitamin D would not have been discovered. Its discovery was the secret to rickets; its use is essentially the therapy of that disease.” The discovery of vitamin D led to the eradication of the epidemic rickets of the early 20th century. Pioneering advances were made in the understanding of vitamin D and rickets from 1915 to 1935. The discovery of the synthesis of vitamin D by the irradiation of foods was the “jewel in the crown” of vitamin D discoveries. This discovery was a catalyst for the public health triumph against rickets. It became feasible to fortify and enrich milk and other foods with vitamin D to ensure that the general population was likely to consume sufficient vitamin D.
It’s a good article with detailed history of rickets, the search to find what turned out to be vitamin D, and the use of nutritional supplements to eradicate a nasty, crippling disease in children. Happy to see it online.
Some of our greatest triumphs in science, technology and public health are too little known. I am working on the history of technology and science, and particularly its wedding with social progressivism in the Progressive Age, part of a project I was fortunate to stumble into in the Dallas Independent School District funded by a Teaching American History Grant from the U.S. Department of Education. Sadly, Republicans in Congress insisted on cutting those grants to improve teaching with greater emphasis on original sources and original documents.
More Americans, more American school kids, should know about the triumphs of public health and science. Maybe highlighting some of those advances here can help another teacher somewhere else.
7 Comments | Disease, Gilded Age, Great Depression, Health care, History, History images, History of Science, Industrial Revolution, Science, Teaching American History Grant, Technology | Tagged: Gilded Age, Great Depression, Health care, History, Industrial Revolution, Progressive Era, Public health, Rickets, Science, Teaching American History Grant, Technology, Vitamin D | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
Exponential growth’s potential to rapidly change the numbers of a situation tends to fall out of the thoughts of most people, who don’t see such things occur in daily life.
You should stop and think about this one for a minute: World population will tip to over 7 billion people soon, maybe in the next week, but most assuredly by next spring.
Seven billion people? Really? Are the concessions adequate? The restrooms?
Joel E. Cohen wrote about the event in Sunday’s New York Times:
ONE week from today, the United Nations estimates, the world’s population will reach seven billion. Because censuses are infrequent and incomplete, no one knows the precise date — the Census Bureau puts it somewhere next March — but there can be no doubt that humanity is approaching a milestone.
The first billion people accumulated over a leisurely interval, from the origins of humans hundreds of thousands of years ago to the early 1800s. Adding the second took another 120 or so years. Then, in the last 50 years, humanity more than doubled, surging from three billion in 1959 to four billion in 1974, five billion in 1987 and six billion in 1998. This rate of population increase has no historical precedent.
Can the earth support seven billion now, and the three billion people who are expected to be added by the end of this century? Are the enormous increases in households, cities, material consumption and waste compatible with dignity, health, environmental quality and freedom from poverty?
(Joel E. Cohen, a mathematical biologist and the head of the Laboratory of Populations at Rockefeller University and Columbia University, is the author of “How Many People Can the Earth Support?”)
We’re in for some dramatic shifts in concentrations of people, if not shifts in how we think of the world (thinking is always slower than reality).
While the bulge in younger people, if they are educated, presents a potential “demographic dividend” for countries like Bangladesh and Brazil, the shrinking proportion of working-age people elsewhere may place a strain on governments and lead them to raise retirement ages and to encourage alternative job opportunities for older workers.
Even in the United States, the proportion of the gross domestic product spent on Social Security and Medicare is projected to rise to 14.5 percent in 2050, from 8.4 percent this year.
The Population Reference Bureau said that by 2050, Russia and Japan would be bumped from the 10 most populous countries by Ethiopia and the Democratic Republic of Congo.
I’m not ready, and neither are most other people, I’ll wager. How about you?
More:
98 Comments | Demographics, Economics, foreign affairs, Geography - Economic, Geography - Political, History, Population, Poverty | Tagged: 7 Billion, Demographics, Economics, environment, foreign affairs, geography, History, Population Growth, Poverty | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
Press release from the Center for Inquiry:
Carl Sagan Day: November 9 — Celebrate with us!
Event Ideas & Sagan Day Commemorative Posters
Carl Sagan was a Professor of Astronomy and Space Science and Director of the Laboratory for Planetary Studies at Cornell University, but most of us know him as a Pulitzer Prize winning author and the creator of COSMOS. That Emmy and Peabody award-winning PBS television series transformed educational television and continues to affect the hearts and minds of over a billion people in over sixty countries.
No other scientist has been able to reach and engage so many nonscientists in such a meaningful way, and that is why we honor Dr. Sagan, remember his work, and revel in the cosmos he helped us understand.
Two years ago, CFI–Fort Lauderdale and other groups hostd the first Carl Sagan Day event in Florida. It was a fantastic success and now individuals and groups around the world are planning their own tributes with science fairs, planetarium shows, teacher workshops, star parties, COSMOS marathons, and more—all to say “Thanks!” to Sagan and to bring his gifts to another generation of “starstuff.”
How can you celebrate Carl Sagan Day?
Whether you’re an independent skeptics group, an astronomy club, a science department, a researcher, a teacher, a student, or just a really big Sagan fan, there are plenty of ways to celebrate Sagan Day:
- Host a COSMOS marathon—all 13 episodes are available for free at hulu.com.
- Check out Sagan’s many books at your local library or bookstore using the thorough listings from WorldCat.org.
- Enjoy the special collection of articles by or about Sagan, previously published in Skeptical Inquirer magazine.
- Listen to Sagan’s last public address for the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry (formerly CSICOP) as replayed on CFI’s podcast, Point of Inquiry: “Wonder and Skepticism.”
- Listen to Ann Druyan, writer, producer, and widow of Sagan, discuss life with Carl, his outlook on life, and his famous Gifford Lectures, “The Varieties of Scientific Experience,” also on Point of Inquiry.
- Host your own apple pie baking contest (from scratch, of course).
- Dress like Carl for a day!
- Refresh your skeptic skills with a review of Sagan’s Baloney Detection Kit.
- Invite your friends over and try to convince them you have a dragon in your garage.
- Take in a star show at your local planetarium.
- At the very least, seek out a dark sky, look UP, and reconnect with the grandeur of the cosmos.
Let us know how you’re planning to commemorate Carl Sagan Day 2011 and we’ll add your event to our Carl Sagan Day Event Calendar to help spread the word. Please email your event information to grassroots@centerforinquiry.net.
Great collection of posters, featuring Sagan, the Very Large Array, and quotes from the good doctor, here.
November 9 is the anniversary of Sagan’s birth, of course.
1 Comment | Biography, Heroes, History, History of Science, Science, Space exploration | Tagged: Biography, Carl Sagan Day, Cosmos, Heroes, History, November 9, Science, Space exploration | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
I just stumbled across this photograph, taken in October 2010, in Sirte, Libya, at the opening of the “Second Arab-African Summit.”
2nd Arab-African Summit, Sirte, Libya, October 2010
One source identifies this as an Associated Press photo (can I claim fair use here for the purposes of history discussion?).
I cannot identify all the leaders of nations in this picture, but there, on the front row we see what are the ghosts of history — at least, they are ghosts from our vantage point in October 2011, just one year later.
On the far left of the first row in the photo smiles Tunisian President Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali, now resigned and fled the nation in the first big event of the sweeping broom of freedom we now call Arab Spring; next to him, Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh, who today barely clings to power trying to negotiate his own departure after eight months of protests in his nation. Dominating the center, in his flamboyant robes, Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi, killed yesterday in the civil war that brought down his 42-years of despotic government a few weeks earlier. Gaddafi’s leaning post is now-ousted-and-on-trial Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak.
Syria’s Bashar al Assad is happy he was not in the center of this group, and hopes that’s a good omen for him — though Assad did attend this event.
Syria President Bashar Al Assad at Sirte, Libya, African Arab Summit, October 10, 2010 – photo by Kaled Desouki, via PRI
This historic photo above appeared as an illustration to an article by an Arab sociologist bemoaning the dwindling hopes of change in the Arab world, and asking the question: “When will Arabs awaken?” Dr. Mohammad Abdullah Al Mutawa’s article sounds prophetic, now.
When will the pages of history turn? Soon, perhaps, and when we least expect it and when some have lost hope they will turn at all.
Can you help identify others in the photo? Surely there are other photos from this meeting in Sirte, Libya. What do they show?
More:
1 Comment | Africa, Freedom - Political, History, History images, photography, Revolution | Tagged: Africa, Ali Abdullah Saleh, Arab Spring, Egypt, History, Hosni Mubarak, Libya, Muammar Gaddafi, Tunisia, Yemen, Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
Cartoon by Maki Naro, for GE - Click for larger image
GE’s release said:
Perhaps there should be a bumper sticker: “If you love doing stuff at night without a kerosene lantern, thank Edison.” Okay, it doesn’t roll trippingly off the tongue. Still, today is the anniversary of Thomas Edison’s 13-and-a-half-hour test of the carbon filament lightbulb that made electric light a practical reality for the world. As we’ve discussed before, Edison was one of many inventors of the lightbulb, but his designs proved to be transformative for the technology. Maki Naro marked the occasion with a short comic (replete with Alexander Graham Bell, who’s hoppin’ mad).
Too commercial for classroom use? Not with proper attribution, I think.
Meanwhile, earlier at the Bathtub:
5 Comments | History, Invention, Science, Technology | Tagged: Edison, History, Innovation, Invention, Light Bulb, Research, Science, Technology | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
Kin Hubbard and Will Rogers, image from Lilly Library, Indiana University, Bloomington, Indiana
It was a warning from a prophet of the past, and it applies to almost every controversy you can think of in 2011:
It isn’t what we don’t know that gives us trouble, it’s what we know that ain’t so.
The only problem is, to whom do we attribute it? Was it Will Rogers who said, or Frank McKinney “Kin” Hubbard, or Artemus Ward?
Virtue may be its own reward, but ignorance costs everybody, especially when it is elected or promoted to power.
More:
11 Comments | Dunning Kruger Effect, Dunning-Kruger Effect, Famous quotes, History, Libraries, Newspapers, Politics, Quotes | Tagged: Artemus Ward, Dunning-Kruger Effect, Famous quotes, History, ignorance, Kin Hubbard, Lilly Library, Newspapers, Politics, Quotes, Will Rogers | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
I hadn’t thought Burt Folsom, author of FDR Goes to War, much of an ideologue, but a post at his blog makes me wonder about whether he is so grossly inaccurate on other things, too.
The post, written by Anita Folsom, said:
Fast-forward to the post-World War II period. In 1962, Rachel Carson published her best-selling text, Silent Spring,
in which she protested the effects of pesticides on the environment. Ten years later, DDT was banned.
Thomas Sowell points out that such bans, while passed with the best of intentions, have unleashed growth in the numbers of mosquitoes and a huge recurrence of malaria in parts of the world where it had been under control. The same is true of modern pesticides in the U.S. today. One reason for the rise in the incidence of bedbugs, which bite humans and spread disease, is that the federal government has banned the use of chemicals that were effective against such insects.
The issue is one of balance. While it is every citizen’s responsibility to take an interest in a clean environment, it is also a responsibility to avoid over-zealous regulators who cause harm by banning useful chemicals. Perhaps what is needed is a substance that will cause bureaucrats to leave citizens alone, both immediately and in the future.
Perhaps the trouble comes from relying on Thomas Sowell as a source here — on DDT and Rachel Carson, Sowell appears to be just making up false stuff.
Thomas Sowell has come unstuck in history, at least with regard to DDT and malaria.
First, the “DDT ban” mentioned here was by U.S. EPA. Consequently, it applies ONLY to the U.S., and not to any nation where malaria is a problem.
Second, the order banning DDT in the U.S. restricted the ban to agricultural use on agricultural crops, almost solely cotton at the time. DDT use to fight malaria would still be legal in the U.S.
Third, the order banning DDT use in the U.S. specifically exempted manufacture of DDT — so in effect, the order more than doubled the amount of DDT available to fight malaria mosquitoes because all U.S. production was dedicated to export, specifically to allow DDT to be used to fight malaria.
Fourth, and probably most critically, it is simply false that malaria resurged when DDT was banned. By 1972, malaria infections were about 500 million annually, worldwide. Malaria deaths were about 2 million. Even without U.S. spraying DDT on cotton crops in Texas and Arkansas, and to be honest, without a lot of DDT use except in indoor residual spraying as promoted by the World Health Organization (WHO), malaria infections have been reduced by 50%, to about 250 million annually — and malaria deaths were reduced by more than 50%, to fewer than 900,000 annually, worldwide. WHO estimates more than 700,000 African children were saved from malaria deaths in the decade from 2001 through 2010.
Malaria deaths and malaria infections decreased after DDT was banned in the U.S., and continue to decline.
Burt and Anita Folsom should have checked Sowell’s claims on DDT, rather than accepting them as gospel.
Fifth, while it is true that reports generally claim that DDT limited bedbug infestations in the 1960s, the truth is that bedbugs became immune to DDT in the 1950s, and DDT is perfectly useless against almost all populations of the beasties today, and since 1960, 51 years ago. Also, the evolution to be immune to DDT primed bedbugs to evolve resistance to other pesticides very quickly. DDT didn’t stop bedbugs, and lack of DDT didn’t contribute to bedbug infestations after 1960.
(Maybe worst, and odder, 111 people have been injured by pesticides used to control bedbugs, one fatally, in the past ten years. Which is worse?)
Sixth, bedbugs do not spread disease, at least not so far as is known to medical and entomological science.
Sowell’s claims endorsed by Folsom are exactly wrong, 180-degrees different from the truth. Sowell and Folsom are victims of the DDT Good/Rachel Carson Bad Hoaxes.
Since malaria has been so dramatically reduced since the U.S. banned the use of DDT, perhaps Rachel Carson should be given full credit for every life saved. It’s important to remember that Carson herself did not suggest that DDT be banned, but instead warned that unless DDT use were restricted, mosquitoes and bedbugs would evolve resistance and immunity to it. DDT use was not restricted enough, soon enough, and both of those pests developed resistance and immunity to DDT.
Ms. Folsom urges restraint in regulation, she says, because over-enthusiastic banning of DDT brought harm. Since her premise is exactly wrong, would she like to correct the piece to urge more regulation of the reasonable kind that EPA demonstrated? That would be just.
Good sources of information on malaria, DDT, and Rachel Carson and EPA:
Africa had a surplus of DDT from 1970s through 1990s, creating a massive toxic cleanup problem for today. This FAO photograph shows “TN before: 40 tonnes of 50 year old DDT were found in Menzel Bourguiba Hospital, TN.” DDT was not used because it was largely ineffective; but had any nation wished to use it, there was plenty to use.
14 Comments | DDT, Entomology, Environmental protection, History, Hoaxes, Malaria, Rachel Carson, Science | Tagged: Anita Folsom, bedbugs, Burt Folsom, DDT, environment, History, Hoaxes, Malaria, Regulation, Science, Thomas Sowell | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
Two years ago warming denialists claimed the Earth is actually cooling, and they predicted dramatic cooling by late 2010.
Instead, warming continues, overcoming the temporary mediation caused by increased particulate and sulfate emissions from coal burned in uncontrolled fashion in China, as evidence by things like the continued shrinking of Arctic ice below 20th century averages. See this press release from NASA:
RELEASE : 11-337 – October 4, 2011
Arctic Sea Ice Continues Decline, Hits Second-Lowest Level
WASHINGTON — Last month the extent of sea ice covering the Arctic Ocean declined to the second-lowest extent on record. Satellite data from NASA and the NASA-supported National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC) at the University of Colorado in Boulder showed that the summertime sea ice cover narrowly avoided a new record low.The Arctic ice cap grows each winter as the sun sets for several months and shrinks each summer as the sun rises higher in the northern sky. Each year the Arctic sea ice reaches its annual minimum extent in September. It hit a record low in 2007.
The near-record ice-melt followed higher-than-average summer temperatures, but without the unusual weather conditions that contributed to the extreme melt of 2007. “Atmospheric and oceanic conditions were not as conducive to ice loss this year, but the melt still neared 2007 levels,” said NSIDC scientist Walt Meier. “This probably reflects loss of multiyear ice in the Beaufort and Chukchi seas as well as other factors that are making the ice more vulnerable.”
Joey Comiso, senior scientist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., said the continued low minimum sea ice levels fits into the large-scale decline pattern that scientists have watched unfold over the past three decades.
“The sea ice is not only declining, the pace of the decline is becoming more drastic,” Comiso said. “The older, thicker ice is declining faster than the rest, making for a more vulnerable perennial ice cover.”
While the sea ice extent did not dip below the 2007 record, the sea ice area as measured by the microwave radiometer on NASA’s Aqua satellite did drop slightly lower than 2007 levels for about 10 days in early September, Comiso said. Sea ice “area” differs from extent in that it equals the actual surface area covered by ice, while extent includes any area where ice covers at least 15 percent of the ocean.
Arctic sea ice extent on Sept. 9, the lowest point this year, was 4.33 million square kilometers (1.67 million square miles). Averaged over the month of September, ice extent was 4.61 million square kilometers (1.78 million square miles). This places 2011 as the second lowest ice extent both for the daily minimum extent and the monthly average. Ice extent was 2.43 million square kilometers (938,000 square miles) below the 1979 to 2000 average.
This summer’s low ice extent continued the downward trend seen over the last 30 years, which scientists attribute largely to warming temperatures caused by climate change. Data show that Arctic sea ice has been declining both in extent and thickness. Since 1979, September Arctic sea ice extent has declined by 12 percent per decade.
“The oldest and thickest ice in the Arctic continues to decline, especially in the Beaufort Sea and the Canada Basin,” NSIDC scientist Julienne Stroeve said. “This appears to be an important driver for the low sea ice conditions over the past few summers.”
Climate models have suggested that the Arctic could lose almost all of its summer ice cover by 2100, but in recent years, ice extent has declined faster than the models predicted.
NASA monitors and studies changing sea ice conditions in both the Arctic and Antarctic with a variety of spaceborne and airborne research capabilities. This month NASA resumes Operation IceBridge, a multi-year series of flights over sea ice and ice sheets at both poles. This fall’s campaign will be based out of Punta Arenas, Chile, and make flights over Antarctica. NASA also continues work toward launching ICESat-2 in 2016, which will continue its predecessor’s crucial laser altimetry observations of ice cover from space.
To see a NASA data visualization of the 2011 Arctic sea ice minimum as measured by the Advanced Microwave Scanning Radiometer – Earth Observing System (AMSR-E) on Aqua, visit:
http://www.nasa.gov/topics/earth/features/2011-ice-min.html [I have changed the link to one that works for me.]
Here is that visualization, presented by Cryosphere Program Manager, Tom Wagner:
On Sept. 9th, 2011, Arctic sea ice most likely hit its minimum extent for the year. On Sept. 20th, NASA’s Cryosphere Program Manager, Tom Wagner, shared his perspectives on the ice with television audiences across the country.
On the top of the world, a pulsing, shifting body of ice has profound effects on the weather and climate of the rest of the planet. Every winter as temperatures dip, sea ice freezes out of cold Arctic Ocean waters, and every summer the extent of that ice shrinks as warm ocean temperatures eat it away. Ice cover throughout the year can affect polar ecosystems, world-wide ocean currents, and even the heat budget of the Earth.
During the last 30 years we’ve been monitoring the ice with satellites, there has been a consistent downward trend, with less and less ice making it through the summer. The thickness of that ice has also diminished. In 2011 Arctic sea ice extent was its second smallest on record, opening up the fabled Northwest Passages and setting the stage for more years like this in the future. In this video, NASA’s Cryosphere Program Manager, Tom Wagner, shares his perspectives on the 2011 sea ice minimum.
More data and animation versions here, at Goddard Multimedia.
60 Comments | animation, Climate change, climate_change, CO2, Cost of Green, Global warming, History, NASA, Politics, Research, Science | Tagged: animation, Arctic Ice Minimum, Climate change, Climatology, CO2, Global warming, History, NASA, Politics, Research, Science | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
It was a great video, out last year:
But this year? The website is expired. (Somebody holler if it gets renewed, please.) Free parking at GoDaddy.com is limited, it appears.
Whatever happened to the idea that we might reconsider Columbus Day, what we celebrate, and how to celebrate wisely to honor indigenous Americans?
Do we need more material like this?
16,244 views
More to consider:
2 Comments | Age of Exploration, Columbus, Genocide, Native Americans | Tagged: Age of Exploration, Columbus, Columbus Day, Genocide, History, Native Americans | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
Designed to promote democracy versus communism, and free enterprise (capitalism) over communism’s totalitarian governments then in vogue in the Eastern Bloc, this film was targeted to young college students who did not have the opportunity to fight for freedom in World War II. “Make Mine Freedom” was produced by Harding College in 1948, preserved by the Prelinger Archives.
Is it a bit heavy handed? Is this an accurate portrait of economic or political freedom? Are the characters in this animated short movie quite stereotyped?
In Blogylvania, the movie has been seized on as a sort of parable for our times. Those bloggers who say it is a parable see a lot more in the movie than I do. Almost any Lewis Hine photograph of child labor should be a good rebuttal. Some say it seemed far-fetched in 1948 (then why did anyone bother to make it?). It’s much, much more far-fetched now.
It’s a good departure point for discussions about propaganda in the Cold War.
Harding College resides in Searcy, Arkansas, and is affiliated with the Church of Christ. It is now Harding University.
6 Comments | Cold War, Communism, Economics, Free market economics, Freedom - Economic, Freedom - Political, Propaganda | Tagged: Cold War, Communism, Economic Freedom, Economics, freedom, History, Political Freedom, Propaganda | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
Walter Cronkite at his office typewriter:
Walter Cronkite at his typewriter, in his office - from The Typewriter blog
Pipe rack to his left, on the shelf above; full set of the Encyclopedia Britannica to his right (probably a 1960s set); A lot of books, some dealing with space exploration, among his favorite topics; models of the X-15 and early versions of the Space Shuttle; award from the Boy Scouts to his right, where he can see it easily.
When was this photo taken? 1970s? Earlier? Maybe someone who follows Dixie Cups could date the cup to Cronkite’s left.
This is probably the same office, redecorated, and stripped down to move – and with a different typewriter (a Smith-Corona electric?):
Caption from the San Francisco Chronicle website: "In this March 6, 1981 file photo, Walter Cronkite talks on the phone at his office, prior to his final newscast as CBS anchorman in New York City. Behind him is a framed Mickey Mouse cartoon and his Emmy award. Famed CBS News anchor Walter Cronkite, known as the 'most trusted man in America' has died, Friday, July 17, 2009. He was 92."
Leave a Comment » | History, Journalism, News, Technology, Television, Typewriters | Tagged: CBS News, History, Journalism, Technology, Typewriters, Walter Cronkite | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
Ed Darrell on Texas's Colorado River
Come on in, the water's fine. Come often: Cleanliness is next to godliness.
Millard Fillmore's Bathtub 