Yeah, this has already gone viral, and well it should. Chris Clarke and Charlie Brooker have each captured the essence of knowledge and information passing in different realms. Journalism schools should pay attention.
Spread the word; friends don't allow friends to repeat history.
John Mashey was too shy to raise the question in a thread, but he e-mailed me asking about the witness list for the hearing before the Texas State Board of Education on social studies standards: “Texas Navy?” he asked.
In 1958, Texas Governor Price Daniel re-activated the Texas Navy with the purpose of “assuring the survival of Texas’ Naval history, boundaries, water resources, and for the civil defense of Texas.” In 1973, the Texas Legislature authorized the charter of the Texas Navy Association, Inc., as the official body to oversee the operation of the Texas Navy.
Click here to join the Texas Navy
You can join the Texas Navy. Both the men listed on the witness list claim rank of Admiral, which is not a position one attains merely by joining — so we might conclude they have done something in the past to merit the promotion.
Consider joining. Your membership will help preserve the history and tradition of the Texas Navy. And — who knows? — you may want to testify to the Texas State Board of Education some day. It looks like they’ll bump you to the first of the list, if you’re a member of the Texas Navy.
It’s just such a brilliant question about technology, human communication and history, that I had to make it into it’s own post.
In response to this post about Edith Wharton’s extensive writings and what she’d have done today with e-mail, Mark posted the comment:
Who remembers Paul’s tweet to the Romans?
Helluva question. What does your Sunday school class say? What does your literature professor say? What does your history teacher say? Send ’em a tweet and see.
Remember the latest Paluxy River hoax set of a dinosaur print and human print in the same stone? (See “Fred Flintstone waded here.”)
Now you can own your own. More than 10 specimens available, three already sold at eBay. Cheap, at $5.00!
Bloody Mary played by Keala Settle – photo by Peter Coombs
(I saw “South Pacific” on stage last week. I have visions of Bloody Mary selling these things. Much cheaper than a shrunken head, but the shrunken heads are real.)
Open your own “creation evidences museum.” Ken Ham needs the competition.
Latest Paluxy River dino-human track hoax
Dinosaur and human tracks offered for sale on eBay, in 10 copies
Compare the track below on the left, from the news story on the Paluxy hoax, with the track shown on eBay, on the right.
Invite your friends to bid:
Save
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Spread the word; friends don't allow friends to repeat history.
I think it was during the Los Angeles Olympics that I read a story about a guy in Albuquerque, New Mexico, who had called the toll-free number to purchase tickets to some Olympic events. The seats were available and everything went fine, through the giving of the credit card number — until the woman asked him for his mailing address. [I’ll keep searching for that story . . .]
When he gave his mailing address in Albuquerque, New Mexico, the woman said, “I’m sorry, we can’t sell tickets outside the United States,” or words to that effect.
Despite the man’s pleas that New Mexico is part of the U.S., the woman refused to complete the sale.
Now, Google has lost North Dakota.
Photo below, from Art Hunt’s recent cross country driving extravaganza.
Art Hunt said: "The trip was not without its glitches, such as when we discovered we had apparently reached the end of the world"
Spread the word; friends don't allow friends to repeat history.
Update: See comment from Mr. Higginbotham; AP claims machine error and not arrogance.
Potential collisions are delicious: Associated Press versus the Library of Congress’s “Thomas” legislation tracker; Associated Press versus the Supreme Court for quoting the Declaration of Independence.
Associated Press versus the Southern Baptist Convention and Holy See for quoting the Bible, in phrases Jefferson used in his mashup of the New Testament.
Sotomayor either doesn’t know what she’s in for, or she saw this coming and is going to relish the ride.
James Grimmelman at The Laboratorium has been tracking AP’s attempts to wring pennies out of penniless bloggers and scholars for using AP product. On the one hand, AP certainly deserves credit and payment for the great work it does reporting the news.
On the other hand, AP policies don’t seem much concerned with reporting news or creating new product that can make money for the organization, but instead seem bent on punishing people who read Associated Press stories. (Full disclosure: I make it a point to avoid AP stories and images on topics of my interest just to avoid the conflict — oddly, I’ve found that this actually does shift my news sources on major stories.)
Grimmelman caught AP red-handed in what must be a much embarrassing gaffe: He asked permission from AP to quote from a letter written by Thomas Jefferson which AP had not published.
Sure enough, AP told him he owed them $12 to quote the letter, and AP offered to restrict the uses of the letter.
Grimmelman said:
The Associated Press has become so deranged, so disconnected from reality, that it will sell you a “license” to quote words it didn’t write and doesn’t own. Here, check it out:
Screen capture of Associated Presss charging for a Thomas Jefferson letter in the public domain – The Laboratorium
These things threaten to put hoax makers out of business. Who could think of something so absurd? Grimmelman said:
I paid $12 for this “license.” Those words don’t even come from the article they charged me 46 cents a word to quote from (and that’s with the educational discount). No, they’re from Thomas Jefferson’s letter to Isaac McPherson, in which Jefferson argues that copyright has no basis in natural law.
(A commenter notes that Jefferson was actually writing about patents, but close is good enough in hand grenades and freedom of the press and freedom of thought.)
This one should intrigue the Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee, with their fascination about the calling of balls and strikes. People who keep close score probably realized what was happening at the time — it’s real inside baseball — but those who don’t pay such close attention may have missed the importance of the occasion. Is Obama radically realigning things for his Chicago friends?
Obama’s influence must be much wider and deeper than anyone had ever imagined!
What conspiracy does this photo of a smiling Barack Obama reveal? Chicago Tribune photo by Nuccio DiNuzzo
Spread the word; friends don't allow friends to repeat history.
Can any teacher recognize genius in the classroom? Especially when I taught in alternative programs, I was frequently astounded by the great work students did that was just enough off the mark of the assignment that it might have gotten a zero were it not so brilliant, and had I not had a few extra minutes to grade (thanks to smaller classes).
Makers of Kool-Aid are probably not too happy about the common use of the phrase now, though it would be interesting to see what their marketing studies show — does the use of the phrase hurt sales or keep the name of the product in the public’s mind?
No matter. Use of the phrase to mean that an insult target is brainlessly following some concept is tired, decrepit, grating, and in need of retirement.
Uses just in the past few days:
Daily Kos: “Of course, the CoC crowd have drunk the kool-aid and blamed “liberal regulators” for their problem.”
Daily Green, by Marion Nestle: “But before you decide that I must have drunk the Kool Aid on this one, hear me out. He really is a good choice for this job.”
In The Baltimore Sun, the Rev. Jason Poling: “But I must have drunk the Kool-Aid back in civics class, because when I think about freedom, liberty, just government and all that good stuff, my thoughts fly to the Declaration of Independence.”
The Wall Street Journal, John Paul Newport: “I remember pondering these issues back when I first started paying attention to golf as an adult, before I’d drunk the Kool-Aid.”
Michael Hirsh in Washington Monthly: “Before long, Power says, she had ‘drunk the Kool-Aid‘ on Obama.” [And this usage in an otherwise excellent story that you really should read.]
Bill King in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution: “I still haven’t drunk the Kool-Aid when it comes to Big 12 teams, so while I recognize the Pokes have a high-powered offense that some expect to overpower the Dogs defense, and others question whether Georgia’s offense, minus last year’s star power, can keep up, I don’t believe that’s going to be the season’s biggest road challenge.” [Longest sentence in this list?]
Todd Robberson in a blog of the Dallas Morning News: “Steve Salazar on the City Council has drunk the Kool-Aid on this subject, convinced that the online and phone-in survey conducted last year regarding possible names for Industrial somehow constituted a scientific poll with, as Salazar told us, a margin of error of plus or minus 3 percentage points.”
Politics Daily: “If you feel like forwarding this to those who are open minded and have not drunk the Kool-Aid, feel free.”
Newsbusters: “Back on Thursday, March 5 when Obama held a dog and pony show at the White House, CBS drunk the kool-aid.” [When I used the phrase “drunk the Kool-Aid,” I thought I’d avoid incorrect grammar in use of the Kool-Aid phrase — clearly I was wrong.]
Frank Rich in The New York Times: “Those Republicans who have not drunk the Palin Kool-Aid are apocalyptic for good reason.” [This is the one that set me off, today — Rich is too good a writer to drink the Kool-Aid on using such clichés.]
Can we just retire the phrase now? Copy editor’s, make a note of Darrell’s Corollary: When any writer uses the phrase “drunk the Kool-Aid” to mean something other than someone has drunk some Kool-Aid, the piece needs to be rewritten.
Building in Hasting, Nebraska, where Kool-Aid was invented by Gerard and Edwin Perkins. Wikimedia photo
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 