A few things online that caught my attention this week:
100 years of New York City subway photos.
Do the Narnia movies subvert C.S. Lewis's hierarchical world?
17 million Americans are doing jobs that require less than the skill levels associated with a bachelor's degree.
What to do in Boston during the AHA.
When did colonists learn of George II's death?
Will Lincoln defeat Douglas, Bell, and Breckenridge on election day?
Six billion attend the Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear
Kristof: Give Obama a break.
Tony Horwitz on the Civil War at 150.
Harvard University Press book jackets.
George Washington: Don't bury me alive!
Gifts to Notre Dame plunged in the wake of Obama's appearance in May 2009.
Beth Lewis Pardoe on Willa Cather.
A companion to Benjamin Carp's Defiance of the Patriots: The Boston Tea Party and the Making of America.
Jill Lepore on the Tea Party and history.
Garry Wills on Obama.
Eddie Dean reviews James Kaplan, Frank: The Voice.
Claude R. Marx reviews Ron Chernow, Washington: A Life.
The origins of "OK.
Sunday, October 31, 2010
Saturday, October 30, 2010
"I manage the bookstore but I don't read"
Karen Spears Zacharias writes about her encounter with a bookstore manager/pastor who does not read.
I couldn’t tell if he was making a confession or if he was bragging.
The man looked up from the computer screen from where he was surfing the net and announced very matter-of-factly, “I manage this bookstore but I don’t read.”
Why would you tell that to an author?
I try my best to be gracious to people. I didn’t cuss out loud.
“Have you never been a reader?” I asked.
“Nope. Never,” he said.
“How is it you came to manage a bookstore if you don’t read?”
“I’m a pastor,” he said as if that explained everything.
I’d like to tell you he’s the first bookstore manager I’ve met this year who doesn’t read. In fact, he’s the third one. All were men. All had backgrounds in retail. And all three of them are running bookstores that cater to the Christian marketplace. I think there’s a message embedded in there somewhere but I haven’t decoded it yet.
This gnawing in my gut is more than indigestion — it’s the disturbing recognition that far too many pastors have abandoned the spiritual discipline of reading. And I’m not just talking about Bible reading, although I’ve heard my share of sermons this year that I suspect were pre-packaged and downloaded online.
I’m talking about reading a book besides the Bible.
I can count on one hand the number of pastors I’ve sat under in my lifetime that I know were avid readers. I remember them because their preaching had a depth and a substance that all others lacked. One of my favorites, Dr. Herb Anderson, would quote poetry from the pulpit. That was always a magical moment. It helped that Dr. Anderson lived in a university town. He had a lot of professors in his audience. They expected their pastor to be well-read. But out here in rural America where hardy people live and vote, pastors are more likely to quote a bumper sticker than they are to recite a poem they’ve memorized.
She concludes:
Can a pastor who doesn’t read really lead a people? Or is he more like a blind friend with a map? Pretty ineffective at giving clear direction.
I couldn’t tell if he was making a confession or if he was bragging.
The man looked up from the computer screen from where he was surfing the net and announced very matter-of-factly, “I manage this bookstore but I don’t read.”
Why would you tell that to an author?
I try my best to be gracious to people. I didn’t cuss out loud.
“Have you never been a reader?” I asked.
“Nope. Never,” he said.
“How is it you came to manage a bookstore if you don’t read?”
“I’m a pastor,” he said as if that explained everything.
I’d like to tell you he’s the first bookstore manager I’ve met this year who doesn’t read. In fact, he’s the third one. All were men. All had backgrounds in retail. And all three of them are running bookstores that cater to the Christian marketplace. I think there’s a message embedded in there somewhere but I haven’t decoded it yet.
This gnawing in my gut is more than indigestion — it’s the disturbing recognition that far too many pastors have abandoned the spiritual discipline of reading. And I’m not just talking about Bible reading, although I’ve heard my share of sermons this year that I suspect were pre-packaged and downloaded online.
I’m talking about reading a book besides the Bible.
I can count on one hand the number of pastors I’ve sat under in my lifetime that I know were avid readers. I remember them because their preaching had a depth and a substance that all others lacked. One of my favorites, Dr. Herb Anderson, would quote poetry from the pulpit. That was always a magical moment. It helped that Dr. Anderson lived in a university town. He had a lot of professors in his audience. They expected their pastor to be well-read. But out here in rural America where hardy people live and vote, pastors are more likely to quote a bumper sticker than they are to recite a poem they’ve memorized.
She concludes:
Can a pastor who doesn’t read really lead a people? Or is he more like a blind friend with a map? Pretty ineffective at giving clear direction.
What Are Colleges For?
Over at The American Prospect, David Kirp reviews two new books on higher education: Jonathan Cole's The Great American University: It's Rise to Prominence, Its Indispensable National Role, Why it Must Be Protected and Andrew Hacker and Claudia Dreifus's Higher Education?: How Colleges are Wasting Our Money and Failing Our Kids.
Kirp begins:
More than nine Americans in 10 say that universities are among the nation's "most valuable resources," but they hold different and sometimes conflicting ideas about what universities are valuable for. Universities are expected to generate ideas and generate jobs, to prepare the next generation of leaders and open their doors to the great mass of high school graduates, to speak truth to power and serve as resources for those in power.
Needless to say, higher education hasn't figured out how to do all these things at once, and its failings have been grist for a cottage industry of sharp-eyed critics. Andrew Hacker and Claudia Dreifus' Higher Education is the latest addition to this bookshelf of broadsides, the question mark in the title signaling its viewpoint. In sharp contrast, Jonathan Cole's The Great American University is a 616-page paean to elite research universities. Each book offers something of value but goes too far: American universities are neither the frauds that Higher Education asserts nor as impressive as The Great American University imagines.
Here is Kirp on Hacker and Dreifus:
The vision of a college education that Hacker and Dreifus advance is as timeless as Cardinal Newman's classic 19th-century account, The Idea of a University. "College should be a cultural journey, an intellectual expedition," the authors write. A major like sport management or sign-language interpretation has no place in this vision: "It isn't education. It is training." What should colleges do? Make undergraduates "more interesting people," Hacker and Dreifus say.
While the idea that college should produce "more interesting people" is a good one, I am not sure if it will fly anywhere in today's culture of higher education. Yet I respect what Hacker and Dreifus have to say about this. Sometimes I wonder if our attempts to be relevant and, in some cases, to prevent our colleges from closing, have resulted in us throwing out the baby with the bath water.
Kirp begins:
More than nine Americans in 10 say that universities are among the nation's "most valuable resources," but they hold different and sometimes conflicting ideas about what universities are valuable for. Universities are expected to generate ideas and generate jobs, to prepare the next generation of leaders and open their doors to the great mass of high school graduates, to speak truth to power and serve as resources for those in power.
Needless to say, higher education hasn't figured out how to do all these things at once, and its failings have been grist for a cottage industry of sharp-eyed critics. Andrew Hacker and Claudia Dreifus' Higher Education is the latest addition to this bookshelf of broadsides, the question mark in the title signaling its viewpoint. In sharp contrast, Jonathan Cole's The Great American University is a 616-page paean to elite research universities. Each book offers something of value but goes too far: American universities are neither the frauds that Higher Education asserts nor as impressive as The Great American University imagines.
Here is Kirp on Hacker and Dreifus:
The vision of a college education that Hacker and Dreifus advance is as timeless as Cardinal Newman's classic 19th-century account, The Idea of a University. "College should be a cultural journey, an intellectual expedition," the authors write. A major like sport management or sign-language interpretation has no place in this vision: "It isn't education. It is training." What should colleges do? Make undergraduates "more interesting people," Hacker and Dreifus say.
While the idea that college should produce "more interesting people" is a good one, I am not sure if it will fly anywhere in today's culture of higher education. Yet I respect what Hacker and Dreifus have to say about this. Sometimes I wonder if our attempts to be relevant and, in some cases, to prevent our colleges from closing, have resulted in us throwing out the baby with the bath water.
Halloween Candy and Child Slavery
Regular reader Russ Reeves (what alliteration!) just called my attention to a blog post by Andrew Korfhave on "tainted" Halloween candy. Here is a taste:
Sorry to scare you, but on Halloween much of the chocolate Americans will hand out to trick-or-treaters will be tainted by the labor of enslaved children.
Hershey's, Nestlé, and the other big chocolate companies know this. They promised nearly a decade ago to set up a system to certify that no producers in their supply chains use child labor. They gave themselves a July 2005 deadline for that, which came and went without meaningful action. A second voluntary deadline sailed by as well in 2008. There's a new deadline for voluntary action at the end of this year.
Don't hold your breath.
Few Americans had heard of this problem before reporters Sudarsan Raghavan and Sumana Chatterjee exposed the scandalous conditions under which most U.S. chocolate is made, in the summer of 2001.
In one of their articles, a slave described his 13-hour workdays on the 494-acre plantation as brutal, filled with harsh physical labor, punctuated by beatings, and ending with a night of fitful sleep on a wooden plank in a locked room with other slaves.
"The beatings were a part of my life," said the boy who was sold into slavery at not yet 12 years old. "Anytime they loaded you with bags and you fell while you were carrying them, nobody helped you. Instead, they beat you and beat you until you picked it up again."
The reports shocked some members of Congress into action. That fall, Rep. Eliot Engel (D-NY) and Senator Tom HarkinEngel's bill passed the House, but before Harkin's bill could pass the Senate, the chocolate industry had announced a voluntary four-year plan to clean up its own supply chains, without legislation. (D-IA) prepared bills to require U.S. chocolate companies--by force of law--to certify their products as slave-free.
Korfhave concludes with some practical tips about to make sure your chocolate isn't tainted by the exploitation of children overseas.":
Sorry to scare you, but on Halloween much of the chocolate Americans will hand out to trick-or-treaters will be tainted by the labor of enslaved children.
Hershey's, Nestlé, and the other big chocolate companies know this. They promised nearly a decade ago to set up a system to certify that no producers in their supply chains use child labor. They gave themselves a July 2005 deadline for that, which came and went without meaningful action. A second voluntary deadline sailed by as well in 2008. There's a new deadline for voluntary action at the end of this year.
Don't hold your breath.
Few Americans had heard of this problem before reporters Sudarsan Raghavan and Sumana Chatterjee exposed the scandalous conditions under which most U.S. chocolate is made, in the summer of 2001.
In one of their articles, a slave described his 13-hour workdays on the 494-acre plantation as brutal, filled with harsh physical labor, punctuated by beatings, and ending with a night of fitful sleep on a wooden plank in a locked room with other slaves.
"The beatings were a part of my life," said the boy who was sold into slavery at not yet 12 years old. "Anytime they loaded you with bags and you fell while you were carrying them, nobody helped you. Instead, they beat you and beat you until you picked it up again."
The reports shocked some members of Congress into action. That fall, Rep. Eliot Engel (D-NY) and Senator Tom HarkinEngel's bill passed the House, but before Harkin's bill could pass the Senate, the chocolate industry had announced a voluntary four-year plan to clean up its own supply chains, without legislation. (D-IA) prepared bills to require U.S. chocolate companies--by force of law--to certify their products as slave-free.
Korfhave concludes with some practical tips about to make sure your chocolate isn't tainted by the exploitation of children overseas.":
- Look for chocolate from companies that do certify their supply chains, via labels such the Fair Trade label and the IMO Fair for Life label. My non-profit organization, Green America, offers a scorecard that explains these labels in detail, and ranks chocolate companies.
- Contact conventional chocolate companies like Hershey's--call them, write to them, write on their Facebook pages--and tell them you expect them to prove their supply chains aren't tainted by child labor and slave labor.
- Contact your representatives in Congress. If after a decade the chocolate companies can't monitor their own supply chains, we need to go back to the drawing board, and demand by law that slave-produced chocolate doesn't belong on the shelves of stores in the USA.
Friday, October 29, 2010
God of Liberty Interview
In the meantime, check out this great interview that Kidd recently did for "Past is Prologue," a radio show hosted by Aquinas College's John Pinheiro.
Common Misconceptions About the Tea Party
John Judis of The New Republic wants to set the record straight about the Tea Party. Here, according to Judis, are the most common misconceptions:
1. "The Tea Party is not a movement." It has no political candidate, platform, or organizational institution. But neither did the Populists, the New Left, or the Conservative movements.
2. "The Tea Party is a fascist movement." It is reactionary, but not fascist.
3. "The Tea Party is racist." It is a mistake to reduce the Tea Party to a racist movement.
4. "The Tea Party is a conventional Republican group funded by big business."
1. "The Tea Party is not a movement." It has no political candidate, platform, or organizational institution. But neither did the Populists, the New Left, or the Conservative movements.
2. "The Tea Party is a fascist movement." It is reactionary, but not fascist.
3. "The Tea Party is racist." It is a mistake to reduce the Tea Party to a racist movement.
4. "The Tea Party is a conventional Republican group funded by big business."
Abraham Lincoln's Tough Midterm Election
Barack Obama is not the first president to face a tough midterm election during his first term as president. Louis Masur asks us to think about what Abraham Lincoln went through in 1862:
If you think President Obama has problems going into the midterm election, consider what Abraham Lincoln faced. In fall 1862, the nation was 18 months into Civil War. Eleven states had left the Union and four slave states still within -- Delaware, Maryland, Kentucky and Missouri -- continued to cause Lincoln political problems. The elections were held at different times, with voters in Pennsylvania, Ohio and Indiana going to the polls in October, and Illinois, Missouri, Massachusetts, New York and New Jersey in November.
Entering the fall, few voters were happy with Lincoln. On Sept. 22, just prior to the elections, he issued a preliminary Emancipation Proclamation that pledged to free the slaves in rebel states on Jan. 1 if they did not return to the Union by then. Two days after issuing that decree, he suspended habeas corpus, which allowed wide discretion in detaining Northerners who interfered with the prosecution of the war -- a war that had bogged down, leading to additional criticism of the administration.
Radicals denounced Lincoln as hesitant and slow, viewed the Emancipation Proclamation as weak, partial and ineffective, and demanded a more aggressive prosecution of the war. Conservatives vilified Lincoln as a tyrant, a dictator who was using the engine of government to squash the constitutional rights of citizens. And so there was good reason for the administration to be anxious going into the elections.
Their fears were realized: The Republican Party lost 28 seats in Congress. Pennsylvania, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, New York all sent majority Democratic delegations. In Illinois, Democrats captured nine of 14 seats -- Lincoln even lost his home 8th District....
Read the rest of the article at Salon.
If you think President Obama has problems going into the midterm election, consider what Abraham Lincoln faced. In fall 1862, the nation was 18 months into Civil War. Eleven states had left the Union and four slave states still within -- Delaware, Maryland, Kentucky and Missouri -- continued to cause Lincoln political problems. The elections were held at different times, with voters in Pennsylvania, Ohio and Indiana going to the polls in October, and Illinois, Missouri, Massachusetts, New York and New Jersey in November.
Entering the fall, few voters were happy with Lincoln. On Sept. 22, just prior to the elections, he issued a preliminary Emancipation Proclamation that pledged to free the slaves in rebel states on Jan. 1 if they did not return to the Union by then. Two days after issuing that decree, he suspended habeas corpus, which allowed wide discretion in detaining Northerners who interfered with the prosecution of the war -- a war that had bogged down, leading to additional criticism of the administration.
Radicals denounced Lincoln as hesitant and slow, viewed the Emancipation Proclamation as weak, partial and ineffective, and demanded a more aggressive prosecution of the war. Conservatives vilified Lincoln as a tyrant, a dictator who was using the engine of government to squash the constitutional rights of citizens. And so there was good reason for the administration to be anxious going into the elections.
Their fears were realized: The Republican Party lost 28 seats in Congress. Pennsylvania, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, New York all sent majority Democratic delegations. In Illinois, Democrats captured nine of 14 seats -- Lincoln even lost his home 8th District....
Read the rest of the article at Salon.
Six Suggestions for a Better Conference Presentation
Linda Norris, writing at the Uncataloged Museum, suggests a few ways that presenters at public history conferences can improve on their presentations. Here are her suggestions:
1. Stay on time
2. Have a commentator on the panel who can critique and reflect on your work
3. What is the "big idea" of your presentation?
4. Reconsider using a PowerPoint, but if you do, make sure you put it online.
5. Speak about what went wrong or failed with your project.
6. Incorporate conversation into your presentation.
1. Stay on time
2. Have a commentator on the panel who can critique and reflect on your work
3. What is the "big idea" of your presentation?
4. Reconsider using a PowerPoint, but if you do, make sure you put it online.
5. Speak about what went wrong or failed with your project.
6. Incorporate conversation into your presentation.
Catholic Social Thought and the Upcoming Election
Donald Kommers, a law professor at Notre Dame, suggests that Catholics who take the Church's social teaching seriously:
will reject any candidate who would wish to dismantle social security, oppose universal health care, get rid of the income tax, weaken trade unions, disparage the need for environmental protection, or disdain the creative role of government in the face of acute poverty and rampant unemployment. Modern popes, American bishops and the Second Vatican Council have addressed each of these issues in various encyclicals, pastoral letters and declarations that condemn unregulated market capitalism and the unjust distribution of wealth.
Catholic social teaching revolves around the four bedrock principles of human dignity, common good, solidarity and subsidiarity. The last of these principles -- the one conservative Catholics love best -- downplays the role of the state by elevating the importance of voluntary associations such as families, churches, labor unions, business groups and other community organizations. The principle holds that the independence of these natural orderings, which precede the state, is essential to freedom and autonomy. It also affirms that no higher or larger organization should undertake a task that a lower or smaller one can do as well. Relatedly, in the interest of self-government and human flourishing, central governments should not assume tasks that subordinate political units are capable of carrying out.
will reject any candidate who would wish to dismantle social security, oppose universal health care, get rid of the income tax, weaken trade unions, disparage the need for environmental protection, or disdain the creative role of government in the face of acute poverty and rampant unemployment. Modern popes, American bishops and the Second Vatican Council have addressed each of these issues in various encyclicals, pastoral letters and declarations that condemn unregulated market capitalism and the unjust distribution of wealth.
Catholic social teaching revolves around the four bedrock principles of human dignity, common good, solidarity and subsidiarity. The last of these principles -- the one conservative Catholics love best -- downplays the role of the state by elevating the importance of voluntary associations such as families, churches, labor unions, business groups and other community organizations. The principle holds that the independence of these natural orderings, which precede the state, is essential to freedom and autonomy. It also affirms that no higher or larger organization should undertake a task that a lower or smaller one can do as well. Relatedly, in the interest of self-government and human flourishing, central governments should not assume tasks that subordinate political units are capable of carrying out.
Listen to Kloppenberg's Lecture on Obama as an Intellectual
Looking for something to listen to this weekend? U.S. Intellectual History has posted recordings of three of the talks delivered at last weekend's conference. Included is James Kloppenberg's talk on the intellectual life of Barack Obama. You may recall our recent blog post on the talk.
Enjoy!
Enjoy!
Attacks Ads, Circa 1800
Return to an age of civility? What age of civility? I just finished telling my U.S. Survey to 1865 course that the political attacks of the 1790s were much worse than those of today. HT: Joe Carter
Teaching the Way of Improvement Leads Home
I taught The Way of Improvement Leads Home for the first time today. It was a strange experience. The students had a hard time reading the text critically and, if they did, they certainly did not feel comfortable talking about their criticisms with the author in the room leading the discussion.
Yet, after some initial awkwardness, I managed to find my groove. We started with the Introduction. We discussed the meaning of the American Enlightenment in terms of self-improvement. We wondered if the idea of self-improvement is a universal idea that defines humanity, or an idea that emerged out of a particular moment in history. (The book argues the latter). In other words, was there a time in human history when people did not understand their identity in terms of upward mobility or in terms of "making something" of themselves.
When this idea of self-improvement did begin to catch on in eighteenth-century America, the transition from an older way of understanding life defined by land and agriculture did not easily disappear. Fithian's story is about a particular moment in time when there was still a great deal of tension between the "way of improvement" and "home."
We then moved on to chapter one--"A Cohansey Home." In this chapter I try to explain the connection that Fithian had to the communities where he was raised--the small towns along the Cohansey River in southern New Jersey. Only by explaining Fithian's agricultural childhood and connection to this place can one fully understand the tensions he would later feel between his cosmopolitan ambitions and his local attachments.
Finally, we discussed chapter two: "A Presbyterian Conversion." Here I tried to take the students into my historiographical mindset when I wrote the book. My discussion of the First Great Awakening centers on the revival's divisiveness and the Presbyterian rejection of such passion-driven, anti-authoritative, and divisive religious behavior in the 1750s and 1760s. In other words, the line between the First Great Awakening and the American Revolution is not as straight as some evangelical Whig historians want to make it.
Anyway, I realized for the first time what several reviewers had already told me. The Way of Improvement Leads Home is a very undergraduate-friendly and teachable book.
We continue the discussion on Monday.
Yet, after some initial awkwardness, I managed to find my groove. We started with the Introduction. We discussed the meaning of the American Enlightenment in terms of self-improvement. We wondered if the idea of self-improvement is a universal idea that defines humanity, or an idea that emerged out of a particular moment in history. (The book argues the latter). In other words, was there a time in human history when people did not understand their identity in terms of upward mobility or in terms of "making something" of themselves.
When this idea of self-improvement did begin to catch on in eighteenth-century America, the transition from an older way of understanding life defined by land and agriculture did not easily disappear. Fithian's story is about a particular moment in time when there was still a great deal of tension between the "way of improvement" and "home."
We then moved on to chapter one--"A Cohansey Home." In this chapter I try to explain the connection that Fithian had to the communities where he was raised--the small towns along the Cohansey River in southern New Jersey. Only by explaining Fithian's agricultural childhood and connection to this place can one fully understand the tensions he would later feel between his cosmopolitan ambitions and his local attachments.
Finally, we discussed chapter two: "A Presbyterian Conversion." Here I tried to take the students into my historiographical mindset when I wrote the book. My discussion of the First Great Awakening centers on the revival's divisiveness and the Presbyterian rejection of such passion-driven, anti-authoritative, and divisive religious behavior in the 1750s and 1760s. In other words, the line between the First Great Awakening and the American Revolution is not as straight as some evangelical Whig historians want to make it.
Anyway, I realized for the first time what several reviewers had already told me. The Way of Improvement Leads Home is a very undergraduate-friendly and teachable book.
We continue the discussion on Monday.
Thursday, October 28, 2010
Trick or Treat Night
Tonight was "Trick or Treat" night in the town of Mechanicsburg, PA. The idea of designating the Thursday evening before October 31 as the official night for trick or treating is new to me. When I was growing up in north Jersey we always went out the night before Halloween and wreaked havoc on the neighborhood. This was called "Mischief Night." Then, on the evening of the 31st, we put on our costumes and headed out to collect our sugary loot. In Mechanicsburg, kids are allowed to knock on doors between 6:00pm and 8:00pm. Back in the day, we used to head out right after school and return home, with our pillow cases overflowing with Clark Bars, Mallo Cups, Razzles, Bottlecaps, Necco Wafers, Now and Laters, Bit-O-Honeys, Zagnuts, and Oh Henry Bars, around 9:00 or 10:00pm.
We have a family tradition in our household which we call "divvying up the goods." We get home and dump all the kids candy on the floor. Then we sort them into piles--Reeses Peanut Butter Cups in one pile, Snickers in another pile, Kit Kats in another pile, etc.... We then see which pile is the largest and dub that particular brand the "winner" for the year.
Since we moved to central Pennsylvania, Hershey products consistently win out. (This year Reese's finished first, Kit Kats second, and Hershey Bars third). I guess people are committed to supporting their neighbors in the nearby company town of Hershey. This is good.
As I wandered through the neighborhood with my girls, my wife, and our dog, I was struck by the way in which Halloween fosters community in my town. Think about it. Halloween (or in our town, "Trick or Treat Night") is a night in which everyone in the community distributes free candy to all the neighborhood kids. This means that people, at least for a night, have to think of their neighbors more than themselves. They have to go to the store, drop five or ten bucks for a few bags of candy, and spend two hours of their evening distributing it to eager youngsters.
Sure some folks in the neighborhood keep the porch light off--a sign to the kids that their house will not be participating in the Trick or Treat festivities. But most of the people in our neighborhood not only participate, but drag their lawn chairs out to the end of their driveways and warmly greet the kids as they come by. Many of them wear costumes. Some not only drop the candy in the bags, but also chat for a few minutes.
In the "remote" parts of our neighborhood (defined by the distance from where we live) we get a chance to talk to people with whom we carry on conversations only once or twice a year.
For example, there is the multi-tasker on Nittany Drive. Every year on Trick or Treat Night this guy is out in his front yard raking leaves. He breaks only to say hello to the kids and give them an Almond Joy. This year my wife called attention to his annual ritual.
Joy: "We notice that every year we come by your house you are raking leaves."
Multitasking neighbor: "I know! I make these nice neat piles and then when I wake up in next morning the wind has scattered the leaves all over my lawn again.
Joy: "That's why we wait until the last possible day to rake our leaves!" (Laughter).
Then there is the guy on the corner of Nittany and Redwood who gave my daughter Allyson--who was dressed like a Krispy Kreme donut baker, complete with white pants, a white shirt, a Krispy Kreme hat, and a plate of donuts--a history lesson about how Krispy Kreme used to deliver donuts door to door.
At another house a woman called her entire family to the door to see Allyson's costume. "You're a Krispy Kreme donut man--that's sick!," yelled a college-age resident of the house. "You can come by the house any day and bake me some dounuts!" Allyson was thrilled, but it took Joy and I few seconds to figure out that "sick" was a good thing.
After that we stopped at the house of the kids elementary school bus driver. She wanted to know how Allyson was doing in middle school. After we left, Caroline, my fourth grader, commented: "She is a lot nicer when she's not driving the bus."
It was good to see the family at the end of the street who always goes overboard with the Halloween decorations. Last year they had some health problems in their family and were not able to be around on Trick or Treat Night, "Good to have you back," Joy yelled to them from the road. "Good to be back," they shouted in reply.
The elderly couple on Spring Run Drive had their usual giant kettle of candy waiting for the kids. And, as they do every year, they asked me if I wanted something from the kettle as well. I usually decline, but this year I grabbed a Twix.
The retired baby-food salesman and his wife who live next door were so excited to see the kid's costumes and take pictures of them that they forgot to give them any candy. Across the street, an elderly widow saved two giant Hershey Bars for the girls.
Perhaps what I have just described is more a sign of the decline of community than evidence of its revitalization. After all, this kind of community only happens once a year. Fair enough. But in a society growing ever more individualistic and self-absorbed, Trick or Treat Night may be the best we can do.
Yet if people can come out to chat with their neighbors once a year, it gives me hope that perhaps this kind of sociability is possible on a more regular basis.
I have never been a fan of ghouls, ghosts, and goblins. Nor do I look forward to my girls being on a two-week sugar high. But I think Halloween is becoming one of my favorite "secular" holidays.
We have a family tradition in our household which we call "divvying up the goods." We get home and dump all the kids candy on the floor. Then we sort them into piles--Reeses Peanut Butter Cups in one pile, Snickers in another pile, Kit Kats in another pile, etc.... We then see which pile is the largest and dub that particular brand the "winner" for the year.
Since we moved to central Pennsylvania, Hershey products consistently win out. (This year Reese's finished first, Kit Kats second, and Hershey Bars third). I guess people are committed to supporting their neighbors in the nearby company town of Hershey. This is good.
As I wandered through the neighborhood with my girls, my wife, and our dog, I was struck by the way in which Halloween fosters community in my town. Think about it. Halloween (or in our town, "Trick or Treat Night") is a night in which everyone in the community distributes free candy to all the neighborhood kids. This means that people, at least for a night, have to think of their neighbors more than themselves. They have to go to the store, drop five or ten bucks for a few bags of candy, and spend two hours of their evening distributing it to eager youngsters.
Sure some folks in the neighborhood keep the porch light off--a sign to the kids that their house will not be participating in the Trick or Treat festivities. But most of the people in our neighborhood not only participate, but drag their lawn chairs out to the end of their driveways and warmly greet the kids as they come by. Many of them wear costumes. Some not only drop the candy in the bags, but also chat for a few minutes.
In the "remote" parts of our neighborhood (defined by the distance from where we live) we get a chance to talk to people with whom we carry on conversations only once or twice a year.
For example, there is the multi-tasker on Nittany Drive. Every year on Trick or Treat Night this guy is out in his front yard raking leaves. He breaks only to say hello to the kids and give them an Almond Joy. This year my wife called attention to his annual ritual.
Joy: "We notice that every year we come by your house you are raking leaves."
Multitasking neighbor: "I know! I make these nice neat piles and then when I wake up in next morning the wind has scattered the leaves all over my lawn again.
Joy: "That's why we wait until the last possible day to rake our leaves!" (Laughter).
Then there is the guy on the corner of Nittany and Redwood who gave my daughter Allyson--who was dressed like a Krispy Kreme donut baker, complete with white pants, a white shirt, a Krispy Kreme hat, and a plate of donuts--a history lesson about how Krispy Kreme used to deliver donuts door to door.
At another house a woman called her entire family to the door to see Allyson's costume. "You're a Krispy Kreme donut man--that's sick!," yelled a college-age resident of the house. "You can come by the house any day and bake me some dounuts!" Allyson was thrilled, but it took Joy and I few seconds to figure out that "sick" was a good thing.
After that we stopped at the house of the kids elementary school bus driver. She wanted to know how Allyson was doing in middle school. After we left, Caroline, my fourth grader, commented: "She is a lot nicer when she's not driving the bus."
It was good to see the family at the end of the street who always goes overboard with the Halloween decorations. Last year they had some health problems in their family and were not able to be around on Trick or Treat Night, "Good to have you back," Joy yelled to them from the road. "Good to be back," they shouted in reply.
The elderly couple on Spring Run Drive had their usual giant kettle of candy waiting for the kids. And, as they do every year, they asked me if I wanted something from the kettle as well. I usually decline, but this year I grabbed a Twix.
The retired baby-food salesman and his wife who live next door were so excited to see the kid's costumes and take pictures of them that they forgot to give them any candy. Across the street, an elderly widow saved two giant Hershey Bars for the girls.
Perhaps what I have just described is more a sign of the decline of community than evidence of its revitalization. After all, this kind of community only happens once a year. Fair enough. But in a society growing ever more individualistic and self-absorbed, Trick or Treat Night may be the best we can do.
Yet if people can come out to chat with their neighbors once a year, it gives me hope that perhaps this kind of sociability is possible on a more regular basis.
I have never been a fan of ghouls, ghosts, and goblins. Nor do I look forward to my girls being on a two-week sugar high. But I think Halloween is becoming one of my favorite "secular" holidays.
More On Lepore's The White of Their Eyes
Religion in American History is running a review of Jill Lepore's new book The Whites of Their Eyes: The Tea Party's Revolution and the Battle Over American History. The reviewer is Linford Fisher, a former student of Lepore who now teaches early American history at Brown University.
You can read the review here, but I want to call your attention to Fisher's informal interview with Lepore. Here is a taste:
LF: In a sense, portions of this book read like an ethnography of the Tea Party. How did—if at all—the experience of attending rallies and meetings in pubs affect your perspective (positively or negatively) of the Tea Party folks and their aims?
JL: My ideas definitely shifted as a result of spending time with the Tea Party people. From the beginning, I always outed myself as a Harvard historian who was writing an article (for The New Yorker; the book idea grew over time) and that I was interested in how people view the Revolution. Most people at the Tea Party meetings didn’t ask more about me. They wanted to talk about themselves. So I listened. Most people felt misrepresented by the mainstream media; everyone I talked to said this. Everyone in the left-wing press was saying the Tea Party was all about race; but for these people I talked to it was not about race. People were upset about that. Austin Hess was offended at being called a racist; he said we lived in a post-racial world. I took him at his word and wanted to be sympathetic with him. I’m not saying it has nothing to do with race. But that’s why they love the American Revolution, because they see it as a white, pre-racial movement, which of course it wasn’t. But that’s sort of the point of the book, and why I gave it the title it has [The Whites of Their Eyes].
LF: This must have taken a lot of intellectual discipline to go and only listen.
JL: I had a lot of fun, actually. Like with the Egan brothers; they were hilarious—exactly like my family. Being at the meetings was pretty much like every family dinner I’ve had since I was eight—was never a Thanksgiving dinner without a pitched political battle. We were family and yet we disagreed. So rather than these meetings being a foreign experience, it was familiar. I never tried to persuade people; I always wanted them to persuade me. People called me “Jane Goodall” because I took notes furiously and furrowed my brow. It’s not a move that a lot of scholars would make, to go and just listen. I did come to think that I understood better, but I still disagreed. For example, I was really trying to figure out people’s position on healthcare. I pressed George Egan on this point, and he told me this heartbreaking story of his three-year-old daughter who was sick and hospitalized and the hospital sent him a bill for ten thousand dollars. He had no insurance, but he got a second job and paid it off over time. And then—this is what surprised me—at the end he said something like, “That’s why I’m against Obamacare. Because I had to pay for it and others should, too.” The same story could be used as an argument for universal healthcare, but that’s not how he was using it. In the end, I think I did become more sympathetic to what they were about. I got to know them. I found myself in the position of defending the Tea Party to my colleagues and friends. I grew to like these people; I didn’t think they were crazy, even though I still disagree with them.
LF: What do you hope that people take away from this book? And have you felt that people are “getting” what you are trying to do?
JL: I’d like people to have a different vision for what political discourse could be like in this country, one that is based on historical evidence and respectful dialog. Argument and evidence are important. Often I need to preface my talks around the country with a plea for restraining emotions and practicing a more evidence-based, measured discourse that is generally lacking in political life today.
I have gotten a lot of positive feedback from various people—schoolteachers, politicians. My colleagues have been uniformly supportive. Same with people I see at events. I was at an event in Washington D.C., on a panel at the National Press Club with Dick Armey (Freedom Works), someone from Fox News, and a person from the New York Times. And a whole group of Freedom Works folks walked in holding—to a man, each woman—color photocopies of my New Yorker essay on the Tea Party. They came to fight. But after the session, a lot of the Freedom Works people came up and said they appreciated what I said. These people really wanted to talk to a real history professor who was taking them seriously. I met a guy in Texas who told me: “You’re the first liberal I’ve talked to that made any sense.” After one talk, a conservative Christian couple approached me and wanted to convince me that the Constitution grants only god-given rights. Neither of us convinced the other, but they appreciated that I was willing to talk. I’m not sure those people “get” me or will like the book, but they are willing to talk to me.
Note: I just finished Lepore's book and hope to have a review up shortly.
You can read the review here, but I want to call your attention to Fisher's informal interview with Lepore. Here is a taste:
LF: In a sense, portions of this book read like an ethnography of the Tea Party. How did—if at all—the experience of attending rallies and meetings in pubs affect your perspective (positively or negatively) of the Tea Party folks and their aims?
JL: My ideas definitely shifted as a result of spending time with the Tea Party people. From the beginning, I always outed myself as a Harvard historian who was writing an article (for The New Yorker; the book idea grew over time) and that I was interested in how people view the Revolution. Most people at the Tea Party meetings didn’t ask more about me. They wanted to talk about themselves. So I listened. Most people felt misrepresented by the mainstream media; everyone I talked to said this. Everyone in the left-wing press was saying the Tea Party was all about race; but for these people I talked to it was not about race. People were upset about that. Austin Hess was offended at being called a racist; he said we lived in a post-racial world. I took him at his word and wanted to be sympathetic with him. I’m not saying it has nothing to do with race. But that’s why they love the American Revolution, because they see it as a white, pre-racial movement, which of course it wasn’t. But that’s sort of the point of the book, and why I gave it the title it has [The Whites of Their Eyes].
LF: This must have taken a lot of intellectual discipline to go and only listen.
JL: I had a lot of fun, actually. Like with the Egan brothers; they were hilarious—exactly like my family. Being at the meetings was pretty much like every family dinner I’ve had since I was eight—was never a Thanksgiving dinner without a pitched political battle. We were family and yet we disagreed. So rather than these meetings being a foreign experience, it was familiar. I never tried to persuade people; I always wanted them to persuade me. People called me “Jane Goodall” because I took notes furiously and furrowed my brow. It’s not a move that a lot of scholars would make, to go and just listen. I did come to think that I understood better, but I still disagreed. For example, I was really trying to figure out people’s position on healthcare. I pressed George Egan on this point, and he told me this heartbreaking story of his three-year-old daughter who was sick and hospitalized and the hospital sent him a bill for ten thousand dollars. He had no insurance, but he got a second job and paid it off over time. And then—this is what surprised me—at the end he said something like, “That’s why I’m against Obamacare. Because I had to pay for it and others should, too.” The same story could be used as an argument for universal healthcare, but that’s not how he was using it. In the end, I think I did become more sympathetic to what they were about. I got to know them. I found myself in the position of defending the Tea Party to my colleagues and friends. I grew to like these people; I didn’t think they were crazy, even though I still disagree with them.
LF: What do you hope that people take away from this book? And have you felt that people are “getting” what you are trying to do?
JL: I’d like people to have a different vision for what political discourse could be like in this country, one that is based on historical evidence and respectful dialog. Argument and evidence are important. Often I need to preface my talks around the country with a plea for restraining emotions and practicing a more evidence-based, measured discourse that is generally lacking in political life today.
I have gotten a lot of positive feedback from various people—schoolteachers, politicians. My colleagues have been uniformly supportive. Same with people I see at events. I was at an event in Washington D.C., on a panel at the National Press Club with Dick Armey (Freedom Works), someone from Fox News, and a person from the New York Times. And a whole group of Freedom Works folks walked in holding—to a man, each woman—color photocopies of my New Yorker essay on the Tea Party. They came to fight. But after the session, a lot of the Freedom Works people came up and said they appreciated what I said. These people really wanted to talk to a real history professor who was taking them seriously. I met a guy in Texas who told me: “You’re the first liberal I’ve talked to that made any sense.” After one talk, a conservative Christian couple approached me and wanted to convince me that the Constitution grants only god-given rights. Neither of us convinced the other, but they appreciated that I was willing to talk. I’m not sure those people “get” me or will like the book, but they are willing to talk to me.
Note: I just finished Lepore's book and hope to have a review up shortly.
Martin Luther 95 Theses Wrap
Lutheran confirmation classes will never be the same. HT: David Beagley
Is Barack Obama an Intellectual?
When the Harvard historian James T. Kloppenberg decided to write about the influences that shaped President Obama’s view of the world, he interviewed the president’s former professors and classmates, combed through his books, essays, and speeches, and even read every article published during the three years Mr. Obama was involved with the Harvard Law Review (“a superb cure for insomnia,” Mr. Kloppenberg said). What he did not do was speak to President Obama.
“He would have had to deny every word,” Mr. Kloppenberg said with a smile. The reason, he explained, is his conclusion that President Obama is a true intellectual — a word that is frequently considered an epithet among populists with a robust suspicion of Ivy League elites.
In New York City last week to give a standing-room-only lecture about his forthcoming intellectual biography, “Reading Obama: Dreams, Hopes, and the American Political Tradition,” Mr. Kloppenberg explained that he sees Mr. Obama as a kind of philosopher president, a rare breed that can be found only a handful of times in American history.
Kloppenberg concludes that Obama is a pragmatist:
To Mr. Kloppenberg the philosophy that has guided President Obama most consistently is pragmatism, a uniquely American system of thought developed at the end of the 19th century by William James, John Dewey and Charles Sanders Peirce. It is a philosophy that grew up after Darwin published his theory of evolution and the Civil War reached its bloody end. More and more people were coming to believe that chance rather than providence guided human affairs, and that dogged certainty led to violence.
Pragmatism maintains that people are constantly devising and updating ideas to navigate the world in which they live; it embraces open-minded experimentation and continuing debate. “It is a philosophy for skeptics, not true believers,” Mr. Kloppenberg said.
The president was also influenced, Kloppenberg concludes, by a wide range of thinkers, past and present, including Weber, Nietzsche, Thoreau, Emerson, Langston Hughes, Ralph Ellison, Gordon Wood, John Rawls, Hilary Putnam, Clifford Geertz, Martha Minow, and Cass Sunstein.
In responding to Dinesh D'Souza's recent argument that Obama has been most deeply influenced by anti-colonialist literature, Kloppenberg said, "Adams and Jefferson were the only anti-colonialists whom Obama has been affected by." Classic!
Tim Lacy provides some more commentary on the article and Kloppenberg's speech at U.S. Intellectual History.
Will ROTC Units Keep the United States Out of War?
Here is Nelson's take on Rubsenstein:
Rubenstein, after pausing at the start of Reasons to Kill to puzzle over Tocqueville's observation that Americans are "fond of peace" because it "allows every man to pursue his own little undertakings," traces the roots of American bellicosity further back than either Bacevich or Beinart. He cites a study showing that even in colonial times, "there was either a declared war or a conflict for 79 of the 179 years from just before the founding of Jamestown until 1785, nominally the end of the Revolution." Choosing Your Battles: American Civil-Military Relations and the Use of Force, record 111 "militarized interstate disputes" that the United States initiated from 1812 to 1992. Rubenstein also mentions research by the political scientists Peter D. Feaver and Christopher Gelpi, who in their 2004 book
Rubenstein argues that a proclivity to war sank deep and enduring roots in American soil for two small reasons and one big one. The first small reason is the early settlement pattern that made Scots-Irish immigrants—warriors for more than six centuries in defense of their native land against the English—the dominant ethnic group in the southern frontier; the second is the "Billy Budd syndrome," in which Americans have long been "blinded by uncritical trust in authority," even when it leads them into unnecessary wars against countries like Mexico, Spain, and North Vietnam. The big reason is that Americans are a religious people who won't fight unless convinced that their cause is just but who are easily persuaded that lots of causes are just. Those include "self-defense" broadly construed, an "evil enemy," "patriotic duty," and their "unique virtue" as "liberators and peacemakers, not selfish imperialists."
But this is more than a review. Nelson suggests that the real answer to why America spends so much time fighting foreign wars has something to do with the expulsion of Reserve Officer Training Corps (ROTC) units on elite college campuses. I am not sure if he is right about this, but his argument is fascinating. Nelson explains:
First, both the volunteer forces and the ROTC expulsions turned the military's recruiting gaze southward, to the region of the country (still rich in Scots-Irish ethnicity and culture) most supportive of the armed forces as an institution and of war as an instrument of national policy. In 1968 ROTC had 123 units in the East and 147 in the South. Just six years later, Southern ROTC units outnumbered those in the East by 180 to 93. Alabama, with one-fourth the college population of New York City, has 10 ROTC units compared with New York's two. As Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates pointed out last month in a speech at Duke University, "With limited resources, the services focus their recruiting efforts on candidates where they are most likely to have success."
Forty percent of enlisted men and women are now Southerners, and the officer corps speaks with an even stronger Southern accent. As a consequence, like the South generally, the military has moved rightward into the Republican Party. "Reversing a century and a half of practice," laments the University of North Carolina military historian Richard H. Kohn, based on surveys he helped to conduct, "the American officer corps has become partisan in political affiliation, and overwhelmingly Republican." In his new book, Our Army: Soldiers, Politics, and American Civil-Military Relations, Jason K. Dempsey reports that in 2007 Republicans outnumbered Democrats 49 percent to 12 percent among senior officers. At West Point, Dempsey found, "enough officers overtly endorse the Republican Party that many cadets apparently conflate an identification with the Republican Party with officership."
Second, the end of the draft and ROTC's banishment from many elite campuses mean that a steadily declining share of those in Congress and the upper reaches of the executive branch have served as either officers or enlistees. Until 1995 the percentage of veterans in Congress was consistently higher than in the country as a whole. Since then it's been lower—around 30 percent and shrinking.
Wednesday, October 27, 2010
What's Going on at the National Archives?
From Yahoo News:
WASHINGTON – An audit prompted in part by the loss of the Wright Brothers' original patent and maps for atomic bomb missions in Japan finds some of the nation's prized historical documents are in danger of being lost for good.
Nearly 80 percent of U.S. government agencies are at risk of illegally destroying public records and the National Archives is backlogged with hefty volumes of records needing preservation care, the audit by the Government Accountability Office found.
The report by the watchdog arm of Congress, completed this month after a year's work and obtained by The Associated Press, also found many U.S. agencies do not follow proper procedures for disposing of public records.
Officials at the National Archives, which houses the Declaration of Independence, the U.S. Constitution and other treasured documents at its Washington rotunda, had no immediate comment Tuesday on the findings.
The report comes more than a year after news reports of key items missing at the nation's record-keeping agency. Some of the items have been missing for decades but their absence only became widely known in recent years.
The patent file for the Wright Brothers flying machine was last seen in 1980 after passing around multiple Archives offices, the and the National Air and Space Museum.
As for maps for the bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, military representatives checked them out in 1962, and they've been missing ever since.
The GAO report did not specifically mention those or other examples of missing items including Civil War telegrams from Abraham Lincoln, Eli Whitney's cotton gin patent and some NASA photographs on the moon.
A second GAO report obtained by the AP details "significant weaknesses" in the Archives' security. The Oct. 21 report refers to a lost computer hard drive from the Clinton administration and highlights problems with the Archives' computer access controls, clearance requirements for employees and physical security. A third report not yet released is expected to detail 213 recommendations to improve Archives' security, the GAO said.
The risks highlighted by the GAO could affect volumes of mundane legal memos but also key pieces of history.
Sen. Charles Grassley of Iowa requested the audits last year, alarmed at the "apparent lack of effective security." He noted the loss of the Wright Brothers' patent, the Clinton administration computer data with classified information and lost maps from World War II.
"This agency is the country's record keeper," Grassley said in a statement Tuesday. "It's responsible for protecting classified materials and for preserving our most important historical documents. ... The agency needs to commit to fixing its problems and follow through."
The Archives acting alone "cannot solve the persistent problems facing federal records management," the report said, because each agency is responsible for preserving documents.
But the Archives can improve its oversight, the GAO wrote, by pressing for improvement in government-wide records management.
HT: Beth Transue Facebook
WASHINGTON – An audit prompted in part by the loss of the Wright Brothers' original patent and maps for atomic bomb missions in Japan finds some of the nation's prized historical documents are in danger of being lost for good.
Nearly 80 percent of U.S. government agencies are at risk of illegally destroying public records and the National Archives is backlogged with hefty volumes of records needing preservation care, the audit by the Government Accountability Office found.
The report by the watchdog arm of Congress, completed this month after a year's work and obtained by The Associated Press, also found many U.S. agencies do not follow proper procedures for disposing of public records.
Officials at the National Archives, which houses the Declaration of Independence, the U.S. Constitution and other treasured documents at its Washington rotunda, had no immediate comment Tuesday on the findings.
The report comes more than a year after news reports of key items missing at the nation's record-keeping agency. Some of the items have been missing for decades but their absence only became widely known in recent years.
The patent file for the Wright Brothers flying machine was last seen in 1980 after passing around multiple Archives offices, the and the National Air and Space Museum.
As for maps for the bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, military representatives checked them out in 1962, and they've been missing ever since.
The GAO report did not specifically mention those or other examples of missing items including Civil War telegrams from Abraham Lincoln, Eli Whitney's cotton gin patent and some NASA photographs on the moon.
A second GAO report obtained by the AP details "significant weaknesses" in the Archives' security. The Oct. 21 report refers to a lost computer hard drive from the Clinton administration and highlights problems with the Archives' computer access controls, clearance requirements for employees and physical security. A third report not yet released is expected to detail 213 recommendations to improve Archives' security, the GAO said.
The risks highlighted by the GAO could affect volumes of mundane legal memos but also key pieces of history.
Sen. Charles Grassley of Iowa requested the audits last year, alarmed at the "apparent lack of effective security." He noted the loss of the Wright Brothers' patent, the Clinton administration computer data with classified information and lost maps from World War II.
"This agency is the country's record keeper," Grassley said in a statement Tuesday. "It's responsible for protecting classified materials and for preserving our most important historical documents. ... The agency needs to commit to fixing its problems and follow through."
The Archives acting alone "cannot solve the persistent problems facing federal records management," the report said, because each agency is responsible for preserving documents.
But the Archives can improve its oversight, the GAO wrote, by pressing for improvement in government-wide records management.
HT: Beth Transue Facebook
Springsteen's Darkness: The Lost Session
Rolling Stone has a short video piece on the Springsteen songs, which will be released Nov. 16th, that never made it onto Darkness on the Edge of Town.
Here is a snippet from Rolling Stone.com:
On November 16th, Bruce Springsteen will release his sprawling The Promise: The Darkness on the Edge of Town Story 3-CD/3-DVD set, which features a remastered version of the classic 1978 album, a feature-length documentary about its creation and hours of live footage, but the real highlight may be a collection of 21 previously unreleased tracks recorded during the Darkness sessions. These songs, collectively called The Promise (The Lost Session: Darkness on the Edge of Town), will also be released as a separate 2-CD set.
Behind the scenes of Springsteen's Darkness sessions
"
"Rather than being a record of outtakes, it's a separate record. It's a fully realized, separate piece of our history," Springsteen says in The Promise trailer above — the first of several exclusive items about the release you’ll see on RollingStone.com in the coming weeks.
"It was sort of a collection of material that ... the one thing it had in common was that it didn't get on the record, which meant it was probably a little more maybe genre-based soul music, garage rock. Amazingly, when we put it all together, you realize it holds up as a double record pretty well."
Watch the video... to hear Springsteen talk about the collection and hear excerpts of the unreleased tracks "Ain't Good Enough For You," "Racing in the Street ('78)" and Springsteen's studio version of his hit collaboration with Patti Smith, "Because the Night."
Here is a snippet from Rolling Stone.com:
On November 16th, Bruce Springsteen will release his sprawling The Promise: The Darkness on the Edge of Town Story 3-CD/3-DVD set, which features a remastered version of the classic 1978 album, a feature-length documentary about its creation and hours of live footage, but the real highlight may be a collection of 21 previously unreleased tracks recorded during the Darkness sessions. These songs, collectively called The Promise (The Lost Session: Darkness on the Edge of Town), will also be released as a separate 2-CD set.
Behind the scenes of Springsteen's Darkness sessions
"
"Rather than being a record of outtakes, it's a separate record. It's a fully realized, separate piece of our history," Springsteen says in The Promise trailer above — the first of several exclusive items about the release you’ll see on RollingStone.com in the coming weeks.
"It was sort of a collection of material that ... the one thing it had in common was that it didn't get on the record, which meant it was probably a little more maybe genre-based soul music, garage rock. Amazingly, when we put it all together, you realize it holds up as a double record pretty well."
Watch the video... to hear Springsteen talk about the collection and hear excerpts of the unreleased tracks "Ain't Good Enough For You," "Racing in the Street ('78)" and Springsteen's studio version of his hit collaboration with Patti Smith, "Because the Night."
Gingrich: Obama is a Secular Socialist Who, With God's Help, We Can Overcome
Wow! Gingrich pulled no punches at a recent speech at Liberty University. Here is a snippet from the CNN report:
In a speech to students at Liberty University on Wednesday morning, Gingrich said that Americans needed to fight back against secular socialists, including President Barack Obama, at home and against Islamic radicals around the world.
"Imagine a small secular political elite imposing its radical values on a massive majority of worshippers," he said in a passage describing Poland under communism, according to remarks distributed by his spokesman. "You can see how strange Poland was - or maybe you can see how relevant this story is to America today."
"
President Obama's secular socialist philosophy is profoundly in conflict with the heart of the American system and is a repudiation of the core lessons of American history," Gingrich told students at the Lynchburg, Virginia, school, according to a copy of his speech provided by spokesman Rick Tyler.
"With God's help," Gingrich continued, "and with our willingness to humble ourselves, to always seek his guidance, and always do his bidding, we will overcome both our radical secular opponents and our radical Islamist enemies."
In a speech to students at Liberty University on Wednesday morning, Gingrich said that Americans needed to fight back against secular socialists, including President Barack Obama, at home and against Islamic radicals around the world.
"Imagine a small secular political elite imposing its radical values on a massive majority of worshippers," he said in a passage describing Poland under communism, according to remarks distributed by his spokesman. "You can see how strange Poland was - or maybe you can see how relevant this story is to America today."
"
President Obama's secular socialist philosophy is profoundly in conflict with the heart of the American system and is a repudiation of the core lessons of American history," Gingrich told students at the Lynchburg, Virginia, school, according to a copy of his speech provided by spokesman Rick Tyler.
"With God's help," Gingrich continued, "and with our willingness to humble ourselves, to always seek his guidance, and always do his bidding, we will overcome both our radical secular opponents and our radical Islamist enemies."
Hijacking the Founding Fathers on Facebook
Attention Facebook users! Be careful the next time you "friend" or "like" one of the founding fathers.
From "Hatewatch," the blog of the Southern Poverty Law Center:
Do a Facebook page search of the name Thomas Jefferson, and the very first listing that will appear is Thomas Jefferson – American. You can click to join 11,753 people who “like” the page.
Well, congratulations. You just signed onto fan pages sponsored by the racist National Policy Institute (NPI), a think tank dedicated to the preservation of America as a nation of, for and dominated by white people. NPI has been designated by the Southern Poverty Law Center as a hate group since publishing heir William H. Regnery founded it in 2005.
NPI has hijacked many of America’s Founding Fathers. 12,835 Facebook users “like” the group’s General George Washington page. Another 5,617 network users like the page for Benjamin Franklin – American, and 2,630 like James Monroe – American. While it is unclear how many of those who add their names to NPI’s Facebook pages are aware of NPI’s mission of preserving a culturally white America, without question, the Facebook fan pages are driving thousands of clicks worth of traffic to a racist hate group’s website.
After being contacted by Hatewatch, Facebook’s management has launched an investigation of NPI’s pages. As a largely self-regulated service, Facebook relies heavily on readers to report objectionable content. “Direct statements of hate against particular communities violate our Statement of Rights and Responsibilities and are removed when reported to us,” Simon Axten, Facebook’s manager of public policy, told Hatewatch by E-mail. “We also remove content that supports hateful or violent organizations.”
NPI proudly identifies all of its 42 sponsored Facebook pages that make up the “National Policy Institute Facebook Project,” but there is little evidence of NPI’s philosophies on the pages it devotes to iconic American historical figures. There are pages for Founding Fathers Washington, Franklin, Monroe, Madison, Jefferson, John Adams, John Quincy Adams, Alexander Hamilton, John Hancock and John Jay; patriots of the American Revolution Patrick Henry, Paul Revere, Samuel Adams and Nathan Hale, and presidents James Polk and Theodore Roosevelt. NPI also sponsors other noteworthy figures including Mark Twain, Daniel Boone, Davy Crockett, Jim Bowie, Kit Carson, Lewis and Clark, Thomas Edison, Norman Rockwell and Walt Disney.
From "Hatewatch," the blog of the Southern Poverty Law Center:
Do a Facebook page search of the name Thomas Jefferson, and the very first listing that will appear is Thomas Jefferson – American. You can click to join 11,753 people who “like” the page.
Well, congratulations. You just signed onto fan pages sponsored by the racist National Policy Institute (NPI), a think tank dedicated to the preservation of America as a nation of, for and dominated by white people. NPI has been designated by the Southern Poverty Law Center as a hate group since publishing heir William H. Regnery founded it in 2005.
NPI has hijacked many of America’s Founding Fathers. 12,835 Facebook users “like” the group’s General George Washington page. Another 5,617 network users like the page for Benjamin Franklin – American, and 2,630 like James Monroe – American. While it is unclear how many of those who add their names to NPI’s Facebook pages are aware of NPI’s mission of preserving a culturally white America, without question, the Facebook fan pages are driving thousands of clicks worth of traffic to a racist hate group’s website.
After being contacted by Hatewatch, Facebook’s management has launched an investigation of NPI’s pages. As a largely self-regulated service, Facebook relies heavily on readers to report objectionable content. “Direct statements of hate against particular communities violate our Statement of Rights and Responsibilities and are removed when reported to us,” Simon Axten, Facebook’s manager of public policy, told Hatewatch by E-mail. “We also remove content that supports hateful or violent organizations.”
NPI proudly identifies all of its 42 sponsored Facebook pages that make up the “National Policy Institute Facebook Project,” but there is little evidence of NPI’s philosophies on the pages it devotes to iconic American historical figures. There are pages for Founding Fathers Washington, Franklin, Monroe, Madison, Jefferson, John Adams, John Quincy Adams, Alexander Hamilton, John Hancock and John Jay; patriots of the American Revolution Patrick Henry, Paul Revere, Samuel Adams and Nathan Hale, and presidents James Polk and Theodore Roosevelt. NPI also sponsors other noteworthy figures including Mark Twain, Daniel Boone, Davy Crockett, Jim Bowie, Kit Carson, Lewis and Clark, Thomas Edison, Norman Rockwell and Walt Disney.
Some Good Job Market Tips
Are you heading to the AHA or AAR this year to interview for a job? Thomas Wright, writing at Inside Higher Ed, has a few points of advice.
1. Know the info on the college to which you are applying, but don't go nuts.
2. Don't be too timid to apply.
3. Humility has no place in the job search. (Not sure I completely buy this one).
4. Proofread everything.
5. Personalize your letters.
1. Know the info on the college to which you are applying, but don't go nuts.
2. Don't be too timid to apply.
3. Humility has no place in the job search. (Not sure I completely buy this one).
4. Proofread everything.
5. Personalize your letters.
More Content at U.S. Intellectual History
The guys at U.S. Intellectual History must have been really inspired by the recent U.S. Intellectual History Conference at the CUNY-Graduate Center. They have now committed to a much more extensive blogging agenda. Here is the announcement:
On the heels of another successful USIH Conference, we've decided to try to increase the quantity and regularity of posts on this blog. Five of us have committed to posting at least once a week, which means that from now on, there will be new content on this blog every weekday.
Nothing else will change about the USIH Blog: our roster of bloggers remains unchanged and will continue to post as regularly (or irregularly) as they like. But starting next week, oursmall exclusive readership can expect more content.
Here's the new schedule of regular posters:
Monday: Ben Alpers
Tuesday: David Sehat
Wednesday: Ray Haberski
Thursday: Tim Lacy
Friday: Andrew Hartman
I am looking forward to more intellectual history blogging!
On the heels of another successful USIH Conference, we've decided to try to increase the quantity and regularity of posts on this blog. Five of us have committed to posting at least once a week, which means that from now on, there will be new content on this blog every weekday.
Nothing else will change about the USIH Blog: our roster of bloggers remains unchanged and will continue to post as regularly (or irregularly) as they like. But starting next week, our
Here's the new schedule of regular posters:
Monday: Ben Alpers
Tuesday: David Sehat
Wednesday: Ray Haberski
Thursday: Tim Lacy
Friday: Andrew Hartman
I am looking forward to more intellectual history blogging!
I Could Care Less
Apparently the phrase "I Could Care Less" was coined 50 years ago this month. Today the phrase is apparently flourishing. Boston Globe Ideas reports:
It was 50 years ago this month — Oct. 20, 1960 — that one of America’s favorite language disputes showed up in print, in the form of a letter to Ann Landers. A reader wanted Ann to settle a dispute with his girlfriend: “You know that common expression: ‘I couldn’t care less,’ ” he wrote. “Well, she says it’s ‘I COULD care less.’ ”
Ann voted with her reader — “the expression as I understand it is ‘I couldn’t care less’ ” — but she thought the question was trivial. “To be honest,” she concluded, “this is a waste of valuable newspaper space and I couldn’t care less.”
She couldn’t have known it at the time, but her reader’s trivial question would be wasting newspaper space (and bandwidth, too) for decades, as it blossomed into one of the great language peeves of our time. In 1972, Ann’s sister and fellow advice-peddler, Dear Abby, used “could care less” in print herself, and got an earful from readers. In 1975, the Harper’s usage dictionary declared that “could care less” was “an ignorant debasement of the language.” (Said panelist Isaac Asimov: “I don’t know people stupid enough to say this.”) In 1979, William Safire declared in his New York Times column that “could care less” had finally run its course: “Like most vogue phrases, it wore out its welcome.”
But three decades on, “could care less” is flourishing. Ben Zimmer, examining its career last year in a column at the language website Visual Thesaurus, reported that “could care less” had steadily gained ground in edited prose. In American speech, according to research by linguist Mark Liberman, “could care less” is far ahead of the “couldn’t” version. And “could care less” is no recent corruption, Zimmer found; it shows up in print by 1955, only 11 years after the first sighting of “couldn’t care less.”
As Liberman observed in a 2004 post at Language Log, “could care less” is not uniquely odd. Its pattern is familiar in other phrases like “I could give a damn” (and its ruder variants), and in the lyrics of Sammy Cahn’s 1940s classic, “I Should Care.” But whatever its sources — sarcasm, irony, Yiddish, or (as its detractors say) ignorance — “could care less” is snugly embedded in the American idiom. Yet the complaints keep rolling in.
It was 50 years ago this month — Oct. 20, 1960 — that one of America’s favorite language disputes showed up in print, in the form of a letter to Ann Landers. A reader wanted Ann to settle a dispute with his girlfriend: “You know that common expression: ‘I couldn’t care less,’ ” he wrote. “Well, she says it’s ‘I COULD care less.’ ”
Ann voted with her reader — “the expression as I understand it is ‘I couldn’t care less’ ” — but she thought the question was trivial. “To be honest,” she concluded, “this is a waste of valuable newspaper space and I couldn’t care less.”
She couldn’t have known it at the time, but her reader’s trivial question would be wasting newspaper space (and bandwidth, too) for decades, as it blossomed into one of the great language peeves of our time. In 1972, Ann’s sister and fellow advice-peddler, Dear Abby, used “could care less” in print herself, and got an earful from readers. In 1975, the Harper’s usage dictionary declared that “could care less” was “an ignorant debasement of the language.” (Said panelist Isaac Asimov: “I don’t know people stupid enough to say this.”) In 1979, William Safire declared in his New York Times column that “could care less” had finally run its course: “Like most vogue phrases, it wore out its welcome.”
But three decades on, “could care less” is flourishing. Ben Zimmer, examining its career last year in a column at the language website Visual Thesaurus, reported that “could care less” had steadily gained ground in edited prose. In American speech, according to research by linguist Mark Liberman, “could care less” is far ahead of the “couldn’t” version. And “could care less” is no recent corruption, Zimmer found; it shows up in print by 1955, only 11 years after the first sighting of “couldn’t care less.”
As Liberman observed in a 2004 post at Language Log, “could care less” is not uniquely odd. Its pattern is familiar in other phrases like “I could give a damn” (and its ruder variants), and in the lyrics of Sammy Cahn’s 1940s classic, “I Should Care.” But whatever its sources — sarcasm, irony, Yiddish, or (as its detractors say) ignorance — “could care less” is snugly embedded in the American idiom. Yet the complaints keep rolling in.
The New Issue of the Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography is Here
October 2010 (Vol. 134, No. 4)
Contributors
"The Charity which begins at Home": Ethnic Societies and Benevolence in Eighteenth-Century Philadelphiaby Aaron Sullivan
"Something akin to a second birth": Joseph Trimble Rothrock and the Formation of the Forestry Movement in Pennsylvania, 1839-1922by Rebecca Diane Swanger
Featured Review of Lisa Levenstein, A Movement Without Marchesby Jennifer Mittelstadt
Book Reviews
Duffin, ed., with Yoder, Acta Germanopolis: Records of the Corporation of Germantown, Pennsylvania, 1691-1707by Craig Horle
Klepp and Wulf, eds., The Diary of Hannah Callender Sansom: Sense and Sensibility in the Age of the American Revolutionby C. Dallett Hemphill
Klepp, Revolutionary Conceptions: Women, Fertility, and Family Limitation in America, 1760-1820by J. David Hacker
Nash, The Liberty Bellby Steven Conn
Kamrath, The Histroricisim of Charles Brockden Brown: Radical History and the Early Republicby Scott Slawinski
Baer, The Trial of Frederick Eberle: Language, Patriotism, and Citizenship in Philadelphia's German Community, 1790 to 1830by Douglas Bradburn
Sandow, Deserter Country: Civil War Opposition in the Pennsylvania Appalachiansby Ryan W. Keating
Toker, Pittsburgh: A New Portraitby John F. Bauman
Contributors
"The Charity which begins at Home": Ethnic Societies and Benevolence in Eighteenth-Century Philadelphiaby Aaron Sullivan
"Something akin to a second birth": Joseph Trimble Rothrock and the Formation of the Forestry Movement in Pennsylvania, 1839-1922by Rebecca Diane Swanger
Featured Review of Lisa Levenstein, A Movement Without Marchesby Jennifer Mittelstadt
Book Reviews
Duffin, ed., with Yoder, Acta Germanopolis: Records of the Corporation of Germantown, Pennsylvania, 1691-1707by Craig Horle
Klepp and Wulf, eds., The Diary of Hannah Callender Sansom: Sense and Sensibility in the Age of the American Revolutionby C. Dallett Hemphill
Klepp, Revolutionary Conceptions: Women, Fertility, and Family Limitation in America, 1760-1820by J. David Hacker
Nash, The Liberty Bellby Steven Conn
Kamrath, The Histroricisim of Charles Brockden Brown: Radical History and the Early Republicby Scott Slawinski
Baer, The Trial of Frederick Eberle: Language, Patriotism, and Citizenship in Philadelphia's German Community, 1790 to 1830by Douglas Bradburn
Sandow, Deserter Country: Civil War Opposition in the Pennsylvania Appalachiansby Ryan W. Keating
Toker, Pittsburgh: A New Portraitby John F. Bauman
Tuesday, October 26, 2010
Johnny Cash to be Inducted into the Gospel Music Hall of Fame
What took them so long?
And for all of you 1980s Christian Contemporary Music fans, Cash will be inducted alongside DeGarmo & Key, the group that produced classic CCM albums such as "Commander Sozo and the Charge of the Light Brigade" and such songs as "God Good, Devil Bad" and "666."
And for all of you 1980s Christian Contemporary Music fans, Cash will be inducted alongside DeGarmo & Key, the group that produced classic CCM albums such as "Commander Sozo and the Charge of the Light Brigade" and such songs as "God Good, Devil Bad" and "666."
Christian America Debate: A Third Way
Over at Huffpost Religion, Gabe Lyons writes that many young evangelicals are taking a "third way" when it comes to the idea that the United States is a Christian nation. Here is a taste:
Rather than view America's founding as either wholly secular or sacred, many claim to believe that we are a country influenced by Christian ideas. On the one hand, they recognize that many early patriots and politicians were deeply influenced by their faith. No doubt such influence can readily be seen in the many American icons and traditions where God is acknowledged.
On the other hand, they are quick to point out that being influenced by such ideas does not equal the establishment of a Christian state. They uphold that the founders did not mean to legislate or authorize any one religious viewpoint over others. As the Treaty of Tripoli, signed by John Adams and ratified unanimously by the U.S. Senate in 1797, states, "the Government of the United States is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion..."
It seems that young evangelicals see the value of thinking historically about religion and the nation's past. This is a major theme of my forthcoming Was America Founded as a Christian Nation: A Historical Introduction.
Rather than view America's founding as either wholly secular or sacred, many claim to believe that we are a country influenced by Christian ideas. On the one hand, they recognize that many early patriots and politicians were deeply influenced by their faith. No doubt such influence can readily be seen in the many American icons and traditions where God is acknowledged.
On the other hand, they are quick to point out that being influenced by such ideas does not equal the establishment of a Christian state. They uphold that the founders did not mean to legislate or authorize any one religious viewpoint over others. As the Treaty of Tripoli, signed by John Adams and ratified unanimously by the U.S. Senate in 1797, states, "the Government of the United States is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion..."
It seems that young evangelicals see the value of thinking historically about religion and the nation's past. This is a major theme of my forthcoming Was America Founded as a Christian Nation: A Historical Introduction.
US Intellectual History Conference Wrap-Up
Head over to U.S. Intellectual History to read Andrew Hartman's summation of the final plenary session of the recently held U.S Intellectual History Conference, "Intellectual History for What."
It was a star-studded panel that included three Christopher Lasch students and Lasch's daughter. Add Bill McClay to the mix and you have one serious group of intellectual historians. My favorite part of the post is Hartman's summary of Elizabeth Lasch Quinn's remarks:
Elisabeth Lasch-Quinn, pulling no punches, advised that U.S. intellectual historians not stoop to the level of our colleagues in other fields, in terms of perpetual self-examination or self-flagellation. She also wished that we would be more cosmopolitan, read more continental theory, learn more languages. In general, she and the others lamented the technocratic, careerist, anti-intellectual culture that pervades academia and elsewhere.
It was a star-studded panel that included three Christopher Lasch students and Lasch's daughter. Add Bill McClay to the mix and you have one serious group of intellectual historians. My favorite part of the post is Hartman's summary of Elizabeth Lasch Quinn's remarks:
Elisabeth Lasch-Quinn, pulling no punches, advised that U.S. intellectual historians not stoop to the level of our colleagues in other fields, in terms of perpetual self-examination or self-flagellation. She also wished that we would be more cosmopolitan, read more continental theory, learn more languages. In general, she and the others lamented the technocratic, careerist, anti-intellectual culture that pervades academia and elsewhere.
So What Can You Do With a History Major--Part 30
Work in financial operations for a textbook publishing company!
Today's entry in our continuing series is an interview with Bill Stone, Director of Forecasting and Financial Operations at Pearson Education, the largest textbook publisher in the world.
JF: What is your job title and what does your job entail?
Bill Stone: I am the Director of Forecasting and Financial Operations for Pearson Education, the largest educational publisher in the world. I work in the Inventory Management department for the Elementary and Secondary School division. We manage over 800,000 different titles; about 125,000 are active at any point in time.
Philosophically, my job entails taking "facts" and making them into "truths" so that the business can make wise decisions based on those "truths." I know I have used words that could be unclear, but I think that they will help in the understanding of what my staff and I do. So to make sure we are on the same page here is my personal definition.
Fact: Smallest unit of data--1 piece of a giant jigsaw puzzle. For example, 1732 was the year George Washington was born.
Truth: The big picture on which we make business decisions--the entire jigsaw puzzle--The life story of George Washington, his life, his decisions, and his actions.
Here is an example of what I deal with daily:
Fact: We have 2564 units of the 5th edition of "Understanding Physics" on shelf G5 in Aisle 72 of our warehouse in Indianapolis.
Truth: This is a very good selling book, so we need to move it closer to the warehouse door, so we can reduce the time it takes to get to the customer.
So my job is to take those facts that we have dug up and make them into a truth story from which we make business decisions.
My typical day involves the four key aspects of my title:
Operations: I make sure the inventory staff have the software tools and accurate data that they need to operate the business. That means I sit in a lot of classes, listen, and take notes...If there are wrong "facts" and we tell a false story, they are going to make bad business decisions.
Financial: Much of what we do and analyze surrounds the cost of manufacturing our product. So we look for ways of reducing those costs. We look at innovative tools to help deliver the best content to our customer at the least expensive cost to us.
Forecasting: We try to guess how much of each product we are going to use on an annual basis. I am wrong 99.9999% of the time. But it is just not a "number thing." We conduct interviews with the sales force, ask them questions about what is going on in their districts. We try to take those facts and weave them into their historical facts to tell the truth.
Director: I have the best staff in the entire world. My job with them entails helping them succeed further up the success ladder than me. My daily interactions with them involve giving them "workwork" (similar to homework--but I do not expect them to take it home with them most days). I give them projects and encourage them to think "outside the box." Then my job is to follow-up on those projects and tasks and "workwork" once they hand it in.
JF: What kind of transferable skills can history majors bring to the textbook publishing industry?
Bill Stone: History majors think differently. They dig for "facts," they take the "facts" that they find and use them to present a "truth" on which to make decisions.
I have three staff with me on this adventure. Two of them are "finance" guys. (1 has his Masters of Administration, and the other is getting his MBA). They are great "fact" finders. If I need to know the details about some data, I give it to them. The third guy is a "history" guy (also going after an MBA). I do not use him for the "fact" missions as much as I use him to tell the "truth" stories. Because he is good at that! As a decision maker, I do not just need to know what the "facts" are, I need someone to tell me how those "facts" relate. I need someone to put all the "facts" together and tell me the "truth." Who better to do that than a history major!
JF: Have you ever had a chance to hire a history major, and if so, what led to your decision?
Bill Stone: Yes, and I would do it again. Why? I need staff that will be able to discover "facts" and develop them into "truth" so we can make wise business decision. The finance majors do a great job of digging too. I need diggers. But I also need someone who can tell the story.
History majors are unusually good communicators. They have done presentations throughout their college years and they have lead and participated in discussions. They have debated issues. Those are the skills we really need in the business world. I need people who are innovators and who can take the historical facts and make sense out of them for today.
If I was hiring for one of my "finance" positions and I had a "finance" person and "history" person...guess who I am hiring!
JF: Thanks Bill!
Today's entry in our continuing series is an interview with Bill Stone, Director of Forecasting and Financial Operations at Pearson Education, the largest textbook publisher in the world.
JF: What is your job title and what does your job entail?
Bill Stone: I am the Director of Forecasting and Financial Operations for Pearson Education, the largest educational publisher in the world. I work in the Inventory Management department for the Elementary and Secondary School division. We manage over 800,000 different titles; about 125,000 are active at any point in time.
Philosophically, my job entails taking "facts" and making them into "truths" so that the business can make wise decisions based on those "truths." I know I have used words that could be unclear, but I think that they will help in the understanding of what my staff and I do. So to make sure we are on the same page here is my personal definition.
Fact: Smallest unit of data--1 piece of a giant jigsaw puzzle. For example, 1732 was the year George Washington was born.
Truth: The big picture on which we make business decisions--the entire jigsaw puzzle--The life story of George Washington, his life, his decisions, and his actions.
Here is an example of what I deal with daily:
Fact: We have 2564 units of the 5th edition of "Understanding Physics" on shelf G5 in Aisle 72 of our warehouse in Indianapolis.
Truth: This is a very good selling book, so we need to move it closer to the warehouse door, so we can reduce the time it takes to get to the customer.
So my job is to take those facts that we have dug up and make them into a truth story from which we make business decisions.
My typical day involves the four key aspects of my title:
Operations: I make sure the inventory staff have the software tools and accurate data that they need to operate the business. That means I sit in a lot of classes, listen, and take notes...If there are wrong "facts" and we tell a false story, they are going to make bad business decisions.
Financial: Much of what we do and analyze surrounds the cost of manufacturing our product. So we look for ways of reducing those costs. We look at innovative tools to help deliver the best content to our customer at the least expensive cost to us.
Forecasting: We try to guess how much of each product we are going to use on an annual basis. I am wrong 99.9999% of the time. But it is just not a "number thing." We conduct interviews with the sales force, ask them questions about what is going on in their districts. We try to take those facts and weave them into their historical facts to tell the truth.
Director: I have the best staff in the entire world. My job with them entails helping them succeed further up the success ladder than me. My daily interactions with them involve giving them "workwork" (similar to homework--but I do not expect them to take it home with them most days). I give them projects and encourage them to think "outside the box." Then my job is to follow-up on those projects and tasks and "workwork" once they hand it in.
JF: What kind of transferable skills can history majors bring to the textbook publishing industry?
Bill Stone: History majors think differently. They dig for "facts," they take the "facts" that they find and use them to present a "truth" on which to make decisions.
I have three staff with me on this adventure. Two of them are "finance" guys. (1 has his Masters of Administration, and the other is getting his MBA). They are great "fact" finders. If I need to know the details about some data, I give it to them. The third guy is a "history" guy (also going after an MBA). I do not use him for the "fact" missions as much as I use him to tell the "truth" stories. Because he is good at that! As a decision maker, I do not just need to know what the "facts" are, I need someone to tell me how those "facts" relate. I need someone to put all the "facts" together and tell me the "truth." Who better to do that than a history major!
JF: Have you ever had a chance to hire a history major, and if so, what led to your decision?
Bill Stone: Yes, and I would do it again. Why? I need staff that will be able to discover "facts" and develop them into "truth" so we can make wise business decision. The finance majors do a great job of digging too. I need diggers. But I also need someone who can tell the story.
History majors are unusually good communicators. They have done presentations throughout their college years and they have lead and participated in discussions. They have debated issues. Those are the skills we really need in the business world. I need people who are innovators and who can take the historical facts and make sense out of them for today.
If I was hiring for one of my "finance" positions and I had a "finance" person and "history" person...guess who I am hiring!
JF: Thanks Bill!
Monday, October 25, 2010
What Are You Reading?
My friend Caryn Riswold recently asked her friends on Facebook what they were reading. So I thought I would steal Caryn's idea. What book is currently on your desk, nightstand, or end-table?
I'll start:
I am just finishing up Benjamin Carp's excellent Defiance of the Patriots: The Boston Tea Party and the Making of America.
How about you? Let us know in the comments section.
I'll start:
I am just finishing up Benjamin Carp's excellent Defiance of the Patriots: The Boston Tea Party and the Making of America.
How about you? Let us know in the comments section.
Does the Constitution Teach the Separation of Church and State?
The words may not be in the Constitution, but according to Yale's Jon Butler, one of the deans of American religious history, it is certainly implied in the First Amendment. Butler writes:
Modern constitutional conservatives, such as Chief Justice William Rehnquist (in his 1985 dissent to Wallace v. Jaffree), often argue that the First Amendment meant only to prohibit establishing a national church, while permitting government to pursue other engagements with religion. But this position is hard to reconcile with the fact that Congress, in writing the Amendment, specifically rejected narrow language merely forbidding a national church.
In June 1789 Congress declined a proposal from James Madison for a constitutional amendment about religion that said, "nor shall any national religion be established." In September 1789, Congress rejected several additional proposals for a narrow religion amendment. These would have prohibited establishing "one religious sect or society in preference to others," or "establishing any religious sect or society," or "establishing any particular denomination of religion in preference to another."
In the final version of the First Amendment, congressmen and senators used the broader word "religion," and when discussing the issue of "free exercise" of religion they never limited its meaning to Christianity or Judaism.
No wonder. The new states in the 1790s already exhibited exceptional religious diversity—at least twenty-five different versions of Christianity, plus Judaism and Islam—and Americans seemed more fascinated than worried about religious diversity...
So, yes, the First Amendment did refer to the separation of church and state. Jefferson used the phrase to explain one, but only one, meaning of the first principle in a remarkable two-part Revolutionary-era achievement: that the new federal government would "make no law respecting an establishment of religion" and that it also would guarantee "the free exercise thereof."
No other nation, much less a new one, had ever dared divorce religion from government so completely, and Congress fittingly used the concepts of "religion," "establishment," and "free exercise" broadly, not narrowly.
This is why we still argue about the subject. We actually know a lot about Congress's precise intent with its broad constructions, although we always want to know more. But mainly we're still trying to figure out what these concepts mean for us and for our nation today.
Modern constitutional conservatives, such as Chief Justice William Rehnquist (in his 1985 dissent to Wallace v. Jaffree), often argue that the First Amendment meant only to prohibit establishing a national church, while permitting government to pursue other engagements with religion. But this position is hard to reconcile with the fact that Congress, in writing the Amendment, specifically rejected narrow language merely forbidding a national church.
In June 1789 Congress declined a proposal from James Madison for a constitutional amendment about religion that said, "nor shall any national religion be established." In September 1789, Congress rejected several additional proposals for a narrow religion amendment. These would have prohibited establishing "one religious sect or society in preference to others," or "establishing any religious sect or society," or "establishing any particular denomination of religion in preference to another."
In the final version of the First Amendment, congressmen and senators used the broader word "religion," and when discussing the issue of "free exercise" of religion they never limited its meaning to Christianity or Judaism.
No wonder. The new states in the 1790s already exhibited exceptional religious diversity—at least twenty-five different versions of Christianity, plus Judaism and Islam—and Americans seemed more fascinated than worried about religious diversity...
So, yes, the First Amendment did refer to the separation of church and state. Jefferson used the phrase to explain one, but only one, meaning of the first principle in a remarkable two-part Revolutionary-era achievement: that the new federal government would "make no law respecting an establishment of religion" and that it also would guarantee "the free exercise thereof."
No other nation, much less a new one, had ever dared divorce religion from government so completely, and Congress fittingly used the concepts of "religion," "establishment," and "free exercise" broadly, not narrowly.
This is why we still argue about the subject. We actually know a lot about Congress's precise intent with its broad constructions, although we always want to know more. But mainly we're still trying to figure out what these concepts mean for us and for our nation today.
Mark Bauerlein: Intellectuals and the Masses
Mark Bauerlein, a professor of English at Emory University, rips his fellow academic/intellectuals for the way they have dismissed the Tea Party.
His article begins with a few rather disgusting attacks from the Left--comments about Tea Party members that reveal, at least to me, an ugly form of anti-intellectualism. Bauerlein references Paul Krugman's comparison of the Tea Party to the KKK in the 1915 movie "Birth of a Nation." He cites Paul Herbert's remark that Glenn Beck makes him "want to take a shower." It is clear to me that many liberals simply have no way of responding to the success of this populist movement so they resort to name calling.
Granted, we have been critical here of the Tea Party, mostly for its members misuse of American history. But if I dive into this kind of name-calling I trust that my faithful readers will call me on it.
Bauerlein concludes:
Wise intellectuals step back from their hostility and return to the virtues they espouse. The more they disdain different social and political groups, the more they appear as but another social and political group. As intellectuals previously were identified with king and church and Party (in Communist nations), so today they are identified with “elites.” This is the opposite of intellectualism in a democratic society. There, intellectuals should be, above all, independent—independent of power and independent of any particular acculturation. They should be universal. They should tell the truth . . . but not get too confident of their apprehension of it. They should disagree with others . . . but not ridicule them. They should refine the common taste, not censure it. They should elevate public discourse, not echo its cheap coinages. We shall see on November 2nd where reactions will go next.
His article begins with a few rather disgusting attacks from the Left--comments about Tea Party members that reveal, at least to me, an ugly form of anti-intellectualism. Bauerlein references Paul Krugman's comparison of the Tea Party to the KKK in the 1915 movie "Birth of a Nation." He cites Paul Herbert's remark that Glenn Beck makes him "want to take a shower." It is clear to me that many liberals simply have no way of responding to the success of this populist movement so they resort to name calling.
Granted, we have been critical here of the Tea Party, mostly for its members misuse of American history. But if I dive into this kind of name-calling I trust that my faithful readers will call me on it.
Bauerlein concludes:
Wise intellectuals step back from their hostility and return to the virtues they espouse. The more they disdain different social and political groups, the more they appear as but another social and political group. As intellectuals previously were identified with king and church and Party (in Communist nations), so today they are identified with “elites.” This is the opposite of intellectualism in a democratic society. There, intellectuals should be, above all, independent—independent of power and independent of any particular acculturation. They should be universal. They should tell the truth . . . but not get too confident of their apprehension of it. They should disagree with others . . . but not ridicule them. They should refine the common taste, not censure it. They should elevate public discourse, not echo its cheap coinages. We shall see on November 2nd where reactions will go next.
Who is the Host of the Price is Right?
If you can't answer this question you are probably one of the "New Elite."
Who are the so-called "Elite" that the members of the Tea Party despise so much? Do such "Elite" really exist? Charles Murray, writing in yesterday's Washington Post, argues that these Elites do exist and they are largely out of touch with most of America. Murray writes:
We know, for one thing, that the New Elite clusters in a comparatively small number of cities and in selected neighborhoods in those cities. This concentration isn't limited to the elite neighborhoods of Washington, New York, Boston, Los Angeles, Silicon Valley and San Francisco. It extends to university cities with ancillary high-tech jobs, such as Austin and the Raleigh-Durham-Chapel Hill triangle.
With geographical clustering goes cultural clustering. Get into a conversation about television with members of the New Elite, and they can probably talk about a few trendy shows -- "Mad Men" now, "The Sopranos" a few years ago. But they haven't any idea who replaced Bob Barker on "The Price Is Right." They know who Oprah is, but they've never watched one of her shows from beginning to end.
Talk to them about sports, and you may get an animated discussion of yoga, pilates, skiing or mountain biking, but they are unlikely to know who Jimmie Johnson is (the really famous Jimmie Johnson, not the former Dallas Cowboys coach), and the acronym MMA means nothing to them.
They can talk about books endlessly, but they've never read a "Left Behind" novel (65 million copies sold) or a Harlequin romance (part of a genre with a core readership of 29 million Americans).
They take interesting vacations and can tell you all about a great backpacking spot in the Sierra Nevada or an exquisite B&B overlooking Boothbay Harbor, but they wouldn't be caught dead in an RV or on a cruise ship (unless it was a small one going to the Galapagos). They have never heard of Branson, Mo.
There are so many quintessentially American things that few members of the New Elite have experienced. They probably haven't ever attended a meeting of a Kiwanis Club or Rotary Club, or lived for at least a year in a small town (college doesn't count) or in an urban neighborhood in which most of their neighbors did not have college degrees (gentrifying neighborhoods don't count). They are unlikely to have spent at least a year with a family income less than twice the poverty line (graduate school doesn't count) or to have a close friend who is an evangelical Christian. They are unlikely to have even visited a factory floor, let alone worked on one.
Who are the so-called "Elite" that the members of the Tea Party despise so much? Do such "Elite" really exist? Charles Murray, writing in yesterday's Washington Post, argues that these Elites do exist and they are largely out of touch with most of America. Murray writes:
We know, for one thing, that the New Elite clusters in a comparatively small number of cities and in selected neighborhoods in those cities. This concentration isn't limited to the elite neighborhoods of Washington, New York, Boston, Los Angeles, Silicon Valley and San Francisco. It extends to university cities with ancillary high-tech jobs, such as Austin and the Raleigh-Durham-Chapel Hill triangle.
With geographical clustering goes cultural clustering. Get into a conversation about television with members of the New Elite, and they can probably talk about a few trendy shows -- "Mad Men" now, "The Sopranos" a few years ago. But they haven't any idea who replaced Bob Barker on "The Price Is Right." They know who Oprah is, but they've never watched one of her shows from beginning to end.
Talk to them about sports, and you may get an animated discussion of yoga, pilates, skiing or mountain biking, but they are unlikely to know who Jimmie Johnson is (the really famous Jimmie Johnson, not the former Dallas Cowboys coach), and the acronym MMA means nothing to them.
They can talk about books endlessly, but they've never read a "Left Behind" novel (65 million copies sold) or a Harlequin romance (part of a genre with a core readership of 29 million Americans).
They take interesting vacations and can tell you all about a great backpacking spot in the Sierra Nevada or an exquisite B&B overlooking Boothbay Harbor, but they wouldn't be caught dead in an RV or on a cruise ship (unless it was a small one going to the Galapagos). They have never heard of Branson, Mo.
There are so many quintessentially American things that few members of the New Elite have experienced. They probably haven't ever attended a meeting of a Kiwanis Club or Rotary Club, or lived for at least a year in a small town (college doesn't count) or in an urban neighborhood in which most of their neighbors did not have college degrees (gentrifying neighborhoods don't count). They are unlikely to have spent at least a year with a family income less than twice the poverty line (graduate school doesn't count) or to have a close friend who is an evangelical Christian. They are unlikely to have even visited a factory floor, let alone worked on one.
AHA Program Online
The program for the 125th annual meeting of the American Historical Association is now online. If I were going to the AHA (and I haven't decided yet if I am) and I was planning on attending a session in every time slot (which I never do), these are the panels I would try to attend.
Thursday at 3:00pm
Keywords in American Religious History: Diaspora, Sexuality, Liberalism, Pentecostalism, Martyr
Thursday at 5:30pm
"God in America"--Part Two: Discussion with Steven Prothero and Randall Stephens.
Friday at 9:30am
Sacred Politics: Rethinking the Rise of the Religious Right
Friday at 2:30pm
Publishing the Sacred: The Religious Use of Popular Print in Early America
Saturday at 8:00am
Breakfast Reception: Conference on Faith and History
Saturday at 9:00am
Bracketing Faith and Historical Practice: A Roundtable
Saturday at 11:30am
A Retrospective on the Scholarship of Richard Bushman
Saturday at 2:30pm
Teachers as Historians: Creating a Content-Based Teaching American History Program
Sunday at 8:30am
Beyond the Protestant Nation: Religion and the Narrative of American History
Sunday at 11:00am
The Influences of Slavery on Colonial Christianity
Thursday at 3:00pm
Keywords in American Religious History: Diaspora, Sexuality, Liberalism, Pentecostalism, Martyr
Thursday at 5:30pm
"God in America"--Part Two: Discussion with Steven Prothero and Randall Stephens.
Friday at 9:30am
Sacred Politics: Rethinking the Rise of the Religious Right
Friday at 2:30pm
Publishing the Sacred: The Religious Use of Popular Print in Early America
Saturday at 8:00am
Breakfast Reception: Conference on Faith and History
Saturday at 9:00am
Bracketing Faith and Historical Practice: A Roundtable
Saturday at 11:30am
A Retrospective on the Scholarship of Richard Bushman
Saturday at 2:30pm
Teachers as Historians: Creating a Content-Based Teaching American History Program
Sunday at 8:30am
Beyond the Protestant Nation: Religion and the Narrative of American History
Sunday at 11:00am
The Influences of Slavery on Colonial Christianity
Dispatches from Graduate School--Part 5
Cali Pitchel McCullough is a Ph.D student in American history at Arizona State University. For earlier posts in this series click here. --JF
I received a nice e-mail from a reader (what, I have readers?) last week. As a recent PhD, he offered his encouragement and insisted that although graduate school can be a “tough season,” it can also be very rewarding. His note reminded me to look beyond the stress and struggle in order find moments of gratification and quite possibly, joy. I’ve been so bogged down by my own self-pity that I find myself dismissing the exciting moments.
A few days ago I came home to find one of my papers fastened to the refrigerator next to my cousin’s graduation photo and a Father’s Day card from two years ago. When I insisted that my mom remove the paper, covered in red ink no less, she reacted in the only way a proud mother knows how: “For crying out loud, Cali! It’s an A paper!” (For full effect you must read the previous sentence with a Boston accent with the image of a 5’2” sassy redhead in your mind.) I stood in the kitchen for a moment, and then thought to myself, “Gee. She’s right.” I’m doing well! But I’ve been so distracted by my first-year PhD anxiety to give myself a little credit. According to a quick Google search, in 2000 less than 1% of people 25 and older held a researched-based doctoral degree (U.S. Census Bureau, Census 2000 Summary File 3). Although more people might be admitted into the “ivory tower” today than in 2000, I still need to laud myself for the endeavor I am undertaking.
A history PhD isn’t for the faint of heart, and neither is grading 200 essays on George Washington’s farewell address. I do not want to see another blue book until finals, but I must admit that engaging with the students in real life has been wonderful. I helped lead a discussion a few weeks ago and practically floated out of the lecture hall. I loved it! Answering questions about Common Sense, explaining the nuances of social life in the blackbelt south, and encouraging students to go beyond the pages of the textbook brought me a joy unexplainable. I experienced for a few minutes what I might one day get to do for a living…and it was incredible.
This is hard. No joke. But the newly minted assistant professor was right—it is and will continue to be a rewarding experience. Thank you for allowing me to see what I could have easily missed. This is a journey to be endured, but more importantly to be enjoyed.
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