Deconstruction Site

The Romans DID NOT do it first.

2011-09-17T08:40:00.000-04:00

(from the wiki on aqueducts)

An aqueduct is a water supply or navigable channel constructed to convey water. In modern engineering, the term is used for any system of pipes, ditches, canals, tunnels, and other structures used for this purpose. In a more restricted use, aqueduct (occasionally water bridge) applies to any bridge or viaduct that transports water—instead of a path, road or railway—across a gap. Large navigable aqueducts are used as transport links for boats or ships. Aqueducts must span a crossing at the same level as the watercourses on each side. The word is derived from the Latin ' ("water") and ' ("to lead").

Ancient aqueducts

Although particularly associated with the Romans, aqueducts were devised much earlier in Greece and the Near East and Indian subcontinent, where peoples such as the Egyptians and Harappans built sophisticated irrigation systems. Roman-style aqueducts were used as early as the 7th century BCE, when the Assyrians built an 80 km long limestone aqueduct, 10 m high and 300 m wide, to carry water across a valley to their capital city, Nineveh. In the new world, the Aztec capital of Tenochtitlán was watered by two aqueducts in the middle of the second millennium.

Kill Your Television (before it kills you)

2011-09-10T08:07:00.000-04:00

August 15, 2011: http://news.yahoo.com/too-much-tv-may-years-off-life-231005195.html

Tim Wise

2011-06-22T08:29:00.004-04:00

http://www.timwise.org/

Rethinking Popular Culture in School

2011-04-26T13:26:00.001-04:00

Rethinking Popular Culture and Media - Rethinking Schools Online

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Introduction — 1
By Elizabeth Marshall & Özlem Sensoy

Part 1: Study the Relationship Among Corporations, Youth, and Schooling

Moving Beyond Media Literacy — 14
By Rethinking Schools Editors

Why I Said No to Coca-Cola — 17
By John Sheehan

Coping with TV: Some Lesson Ideas — 20
By Bob Peterson

Seventeen, Self-Image, and Stereotypes — 24
By Bakari Chavanu

Rethinking MySpace — 31
By Antero Garcia

Six, Going on Sixteen — 36
By Geralyn Bywater Mclaughlin

Bonfire of the Disney Princesses — 46
By Barbara Ehrenreich

Sweatshop Accounting — 49
By Larry Steele

My Year with Nike — 61
By Rachel Cloues

Part 2: Critique How Popular Culture and Media Frame Historical Events and Actors

The Politics of Children’s Literature: What’s Wrong with the Rosa Parks Myth — 68
By Herbert Kohl

Once upon a Genocide: Columbus in Children’s Literature — 77
By Bill Bigelow

The Truth About Helen Keller — 91
By Ruth Shagoury

Why I’m Not Thankful for Thanksgiving — 100
By Michael Dorris

Mulan’s Mixed Messages — 106
By Chyng Feng Sun

A Barbie-Doll Pocahontas — 110
By Cornel Pewewardy

Fiction Posing As Truth — 112
By Debbie Reese et al.

‘Save The Muslim Girl!’ — 120
By Özlem Sensoy and Elizabeth Marshall

Marketing American Girlhood — 129
By Elizabeth Marshall

Part 3: Examine Race, Class, Gender, Sexuality, and Social Histories in Popular Culture and Media

Girls, Worms, and Body Image — 138
By Kate Lyman

Math and Media: Bias Busters — 147
By Bob Peterson

Human Beings Are Not Mascots — 149
By Barbara Munson

Race: Some Teachable–and Uncomfortable–Moments — 153
By Heidi Tolentino

Seventh Graders and Sexism — 163
By Lisa Espinosa

Rethinking Agatha Christie — 172
By Sudie Hofmann

School Days: Hail, Hail, Rock ‘N’ Roll — 178
By Rick Mitchell

Deconstructing Barbie: Math and Popular Culture — 187
By Swapna Mukhopadhyay

Unlearning the Myths That Bind Us: Critiquing Fairy Tales and Cartoons — 189
By Linda Christensen

Looking Pretty, Waiting for the Prince — 201
By Lila Johnson

Looking for the Girls — 203
By Andrea Brown-Thirston

Miles of Aisles of Sexism — 207
By Sudie Hofmann

Part 4: View and Analyze Representations of Teachers, Youth, and Schools

TV Bullies: How Glee and Anti-Bullying Programs Miss the Mark — 216
By Gerald Walton

Kid Nation — 223
By Ellen Goodman

Freedom Writers: White Teacher to the Rescue — 226
By Chela Delgado

City Teaching, Beyond the Stereotypes — 230
By Gregory Michie

Sticking It to the Man — 234
By Wayne Au

More Than Just Dance Lessons — 238
By Terry Burant

Part 5: Take Action for a Just Society

Taking the Offensive Against Offensive Toys — 244
By Leonore Gordon

Beyond Pink and Blue — 247
By Robin Cooley

Taking Action Against Disney — 253
By Steven Friedman

Why We Banned Legos — 258
By Ann Pelo and Kendra Pelojoaquin

‘Lego Fascists’ (That’s Us) vs. Fox News — 271
By Rethinking Schools Editors

Tuning In to Violence: Students Use Math to Analyze What TV Is Teaching Them — 275
By Margot Pepper

Examining Media Violence — 282
By Bakari Chavanu

Part 6: Use Popular Culture and Media to Transgress

‘And Ya Don’t Stop’: Using Hip Hop in the Language Arts Classroom — 288
By Wayne Au

Stenciling Dissent: Political Graffiti Engages Students in the History of Social Justice — 298
By Andrew Reed

The Murder of Sean Bell — 304
By Renée Watson

Knock, Knock: Turning Pain into Power — 312
By Linda Christensen

Haiku and Hiroshima — 318
By Wayne Au

Veni, Vidi, Teach-ee

2011-04-22T14:27:00.001-04:00

Teaching the Classics - peer-reviewed online journal

Henry Clay and the Compromise that Saved the Union

2011-04-15T07:27:00.005-04:00

(that "temporarly" saved the Union)

Robert V. Remini (2010)

(the potential for secession and civil war exist almost from the start, and it is amazing that it took until 1861 for the first shots to be fired)

in 1819, regarding Missouri admission, in Congress, GA rep. Thomas W. Cobb fires back at Rep James Tallmadge Jr. (NY) "If you persist, the Union will be dissolved. You have kindled a fire which all the waters of the ocean cannout put out, which seas of blood can only extinguish."

Henry Clay, before we lionize him, was himself a slave holder, but, as did many, he regarded slavery as an evil that betrayed American values of liberty and free government. He was leader of the American Colonization Society, a group that was not known for its moral position on slavery.

the South white poplation had every right to be scared; they were outnumbered; also Denmark Vesey in 1821 and Nat Turner in 1831

the Wilmot Proviso

Spartan maxim (used by those, such as Daniel Webster, opposed to Manifest Destiny) "Improve, adorn what you have, seek no further.

Compromise of 1850 proved disastrous, in the end, for the South, because it afforded 10 more years for a young industrial North to mature into an adult industrial North, able to feed, build, equip, and maintain and replenish a vast war machine.

The War Powers Issue

2011-04-06T14:08:00.004-04:00

Senate blocks war powers vote amid Libya action By Susan Cornwell WASHINGTON Tue Apr 5, 2011 6:16pm EDT (Reuters) - As leading U.S. senators discuss whether Congress should retroactively approve military operations in Libya, the Senate on Tuesday sidestepped a chance to reassert the war powers of Congress. The Senate blocked a vote on a proposal by Rand Paul, a freshman senator and Tea Party Republican, aimed at reaffirming the constitutional authority of Congress to declare war. The problem with Paul's amendment, as seen by many members of the Democratic majority, was that it quoted then-Senator Barack Obama's words from 2007 in what appeared to be an attempt to embarrass the Democratic president. Back in 2007, Senator Obama told the Boston Globe "the president does not have power under the Constitution to unilaterally authorize a military attack in a situation that does not involve stopping an actual or imminent threat to the (U.S.) nation." Paul said he wanted the Senate to endorse Obama's past words and thus establish that the president had overreached in authorizing the U.S. action in Libya last month without first obtaining Congress' approval. Paul's proposal was "too cute by half," declared Democratic Senator Dianne Feinstein on Tuesday after she joined other senators in voting to table it, 90-10. Paul had trouble getting even his fellow Republicans to support his idea. Some said they didn't approve of where he had chosen to offer his war powers amendment -- on legislation to do with small businesses. "I think we need to address Libya, when (that's) the focus," said Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison, a Republican, after the vote. WAR RESOLUTION Obama briefed leading members of Congress the day before launching attacks on Libya last month, but did not seek debate or vote in Congress, as some lawmakers say he should have. Article I of the U.S. Constitution says Congress has the power to declare war. But Article 2 says the president is "Commander in Chief" of the armed forces. This has been a source of friction between the two branches for decades. "I am amazed that this body does not take the time to debate whether we should be in Libya," Paul said on the Senate floor Tuesday. "Some say we'll debate it next week. ... The debate should occur before we go to war," Paul told senators. Indeed, leading senators have been discussing for days whether to retroactively authorize U.S. military intervention in Libya. But they haven't been able to agree on a draft text. "We don't know yet (whether there will be a resolution). We're just discussing it informally," said Senate Armed Services Chairman Carl Levin, a Democrat who has been supportive of the Libyan intervention. "I think there should be an expression from Congress" about the war, the Senate's number two Republican, Jon Kyl, told reporters. "The problem has been getting a consensus on what that is. It hasn't been easy." Kyl said Republican Senator John McCain, a supporter of the Libya war, was trying to get agreement with Democrats. The House has been waiting to see what the Senate would do, But some lawmakers, like House Armed Services Committee Chairman Howard McKeon, a Republican, doubt the House could pass a resolution now that would approve the operation.

No one every got bent when I burned a copy of Hesiod's Theogony

2011-04-01T14:42:00.002-04:00

Afghan Mob Kills 10 United Nations Workers By ROD NORDLAND Published: April 1, 2011 KABUL, Afghanistan — Thousands of demonstrators angered over the burning of a Koran in Florida mobbed offices of the United Nations in northern Afghanistan on Friday, overrunning the compound and killing at least seven foreign staff workers, according to an Afghan officials. There were conflicting reports of the total number of people killed and whether two of the victims had been beheaded. Five Afghans were also reported killed. The incident began when thousands of protesters poured out of the Blue Mosque in Mazar-i-Sharif after Friday prayers and attacked the nearby headquarters of the United Nations, according to Lal Mohammad Ahmadzai, spokesman for Gen. Daoud Daoud, the Afghan National Police commander for northern Afghanistan. After disarming or shooting the United Nations compound’s guards, the crowd surged inside. Mr. Ahmadzai said that eight of the foreign staff workers, whose nationalities were not known immediately, were killed by gunfire, and that two others were captured by the mob and beheaded. Other reports said that the operations center was burned down as well. The governor of Balkh Province, Atta Mohammad Noor, said that seven United Nations employees were killed in all, five Nepali security guards and two European international staff, one of them a woman. He said earlier reports of beheadings were unfounded; all of the victims were shot. The crowd, which he estimated at 20,000, overwhelmed police forces and the United Nations security guards, and the weapons they used in the attack may have been those they seized from the United Nations guards, he said. Gen. Abdul Raouf Taj, the deputy police commander for Balkh Province, where Mazar-i-Sharif is located, put the death toll at eight foreign staff workers and said there had not been any beheadings. The attack was carried out by “thousands of people,” he said. “Police tried to stop them, but protesters began stoning the building and finally the situation got out of control.” A spokesman for the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan, Kieran Dwyer, said the attack had occurred during a demonstration. “We can confirm there have been casualties, including U.N. personnel, but the situation on the ground remains very confusing,” he said. The casualties included some deaths, he added, but could not give a number or the nationalities of the victims. Mirwais Rabi, director of the public health hospital in Mazar-i-Sharif, said 20 wounded Afghan civilians and five dead Afghan civilians were brought to the hospital in all. Mr. Ahmadzai, the police spokesman, said the demonstrators were angry about the burning of the Koran at the church of Pastor Terry Jones on Mar. 20. Mr. Jones had caused an international uproar by threatening to burn the Koran last year on the anniversary of the Septe. 11 attacks, and demonstrations at the time led to deaths throughout Afghanistan, but on a small scale. Mr. Jones subsequently had publicly promised not to burn a Koran, but then presided over a mock trial and the burning of the Koran at his small fringe church in Gainesville, Fla. Fran Ingram, an assistant at the Dove World Outreach Center, in Gainsville, Fla., said that the church had burned the Koran after a ceremony on March 20. “We put the Koran on trial and we did burn it,” she said. Ms. Ingram said she and other church members were no more concerned about their safety than before the burning and the killings of the United Nations workers in Afghanistan. “We have a huge stack of death threats,” she said. “We take precautions. I have a handgun. A lot of us have concealed weapons permits. We’re a small church and we don’t have money to hire security.” After news of the attack, Mr. Jones, released a statement expressing no regret for the Koran burning. He called the attack on the compound “a very tragic and criminal action” and called on the United States and the United Nations to take action. “The time has come to hold Islam accountable,” he said. A prominent Afghan cleric, Mullavi Qyamudin Kashaf, acting chief of the Ulema Council of Afghanistan, called for American authorities to arrest and try Mr. Jones as a war criminal. The Ulema Council recently met to discuss the Koran burning, he said. “We expressed our deep concerns about this act and we were expecting the violence that we are witnessing now,” Mr. Kashaf said. “Unless they try him and give him the highest possible punishment, we will witness violence and protests not only in Afghanistan but in the entire world.” Last year, even though Mr. Jones called off his burning of the Koran, a subsequent wave of protests at NATO facilities in Afghanistan led to at least five deaths. In several of those incidents, Taliban agitators played a role, allegedly spreading rumors that the Koran burning had taken place. However, the Taliban have had little or no presence in Mazar-i-Sharif, one of the most peaceful places in Afghanistan. The Koran burning at Mr. Jones’ church this time drew little attention worldwide, with only sporadic protests in the 12 days since it took place. In other Afghan developments, six American soldiers have been killed in a single operation in eastern Afghanistan on Wednesday and Thursday, a spokesman for the international coalition said Friday. “I can confirm that six coalition soldiers have been identified as US soldiers, and were all killed as part of the same operation, but in three separate incidents,” said Maj. Tim James. The operation, a helicopter borne assault into a remote part of Kunar Province close to the Pakistani border, was ongoing. The area is frequently used to infiltrate fighters from Pakistan. The purpose of the operation, Maj. James said, was to “disrupt insurgent operations.” The governor of Kunar Province, Said Fazlullah Wahidi, said the operation began Wednesday as a joint Afghan and American air and ground operation in the districts of Sarkani and Marawara, close to the border of Pakistan. He said that 14 insurgents were killed and 10 wounded, but had no information about Afghan government casualties.

Is there anybody out there?

2011-03-29T14:10:00.004-04:00

Explanation: Using the prolific planet hunting Kepler spacecraft, astronomers have discovered 1,235 candidate planets orbiting other suns since the Kepler mission's search for Earth-like worlds began in 2009. To find them, Kepler monitors a rich star field to identify planetary transits by the slight dimming of starlight caused by a planet crossing the face of its parent star. In this remarkable illustration, all of Kepler's planet candidates are shown in transit with their parent stars ordered by size from top left to bottom right. Simulated stellar disks and the silhouettes of transiting planets are all shown at the same relative scale, with saturated star colors. Of course, some stars show more than one planet in transit, but you may have to examine the picture at high resolution to spot them all. For reference, the Sun is shown at the same scale, by itself below the top row on the right. In silhouette against the Sun's disk, both Jupiter and Earth are in transit.

What time is it?

2011-03-28T14:10:00.003-04:00

Politics and the English Language

2011-02-28T14:09:00.002-05:00

"They have used heavy weapons on unarmed civilians."
"Governments that turn
their guns on their own people have no place in this chamber."

-- comments made by U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, 28 Feb, 2011, speaking to EU diplomatas at gathering in Geneva.

Tonight, acting under Chapter VII, the Security Council has come together to
condemn the violence, pursue accountability, and adopt biting sanctions,
targeting Libya’s unrepentant leadership. This is a clear warning to the Libyan
government: that it must stop the killing.

Those who slaughter civilians
will be held personally accountable. The international community will not
tolerate violence of any sort against the Libyan people by their government or
security forces.

Resolution 1970 is a strong resolution. It includes a
travel ban and an asset freeze for key Libyan leaders. It imposes a complete
arms embargo on Libya. It takes new steps against the use of mercenaries by the
Libyan government to attack its own people. And for the first time ever, the
Security Council has unanimously referred an egregious human rights situation to
the International Criminal Court.

As President Obama said today, when a
leader’s only means of staying in power is to use mass violence against his own
people, he has lost the legitimacy to rule—and needs to do what is right for his
country by leaving now.

The protests in Libya are being driven by the
people of Libya. This is about people’s ability to shape their own future,
wherever they may be. It is about human rights and fundamental freedoms.

The Security Council has acted today to support the Libyan people’s
universal rights. These rights are not negotiable. They cannot be denied.
Libya’s leaders will be held accountable for violating these rights and for
failing to meet their most basic responsibilities to their people.

-- Remarks by Ambassador Susan E. Rice, U.S. Permanent Representative to the United Nations, In an Explanation of Vote on Resolution 1970
Susan E. Rice
U.S. Permanent Representative to the United Nations
U.S. Mission to the United Nations
New York, NY
February 26, 2011

compare / contrast Kent State; Freedom Riders in the civil rights-era South

also civilian death toll in Iraq 1.0 and Iraq 2.0 and Afghanistan. also civilian death toll in Hiroshima / Nagasaki

The Immenisty of Glaciers

2011-02-24T14:23:00.002-05:00

Bill Bryson made us respect the immenisty of glaciers when he spoke about one of the largest earthquakes to hit the planet, yet the glaciers absorbed the shockwaves and seemed little botherd by a 9.+ magnitude mega-tremor.

However, all due respect to the immensity of glaciers, an earthquake can make a difference.

Richard A. Lovett

for National Geographic News

Published February 23, 2011

The New Zealand earthquake broke an iceberg the size of 20 football fields off the country's longest glacier.

A huge vertical slab calved off the front of the Tasman Glacier (see map) into Tasman Lake after the 6.3-magnitude quake had hit Tuesday afternoon. The temblor was centered about 125 miles (200 kilometers) away, near Christchurch (see map). (See pictures of the New Zealand earthquake's aftermath.)

The chunk is estimated to have been three-fourths of a mile (1,200 meters) long by 250 feet (75 meters) wide, scientists say.

The iceberg's collapse also kicked up 10-foot (3.5-meter) waves in Tasman Lake.

"We heard a large crack like a high-powered rifle," a U.S. tourist who had been on a glacier tour at the time told the New Zealand Herald.

New Zealand Earthquake Gave Glacier "Last Kick?"

Such an event is rare but not unprecedented, said Martin Truffer, a glaciologist at the University of Alaska's Geophysical Institute in Fairbanks, Alaska.

Pieces of Alaska's Hubbard Glacier also broke off in 1958, following a large earthquake in the state's southeast.

Such events, however, don't occur totally at random. "There has to be an earthquake in the area of a glacier that was ready to cast off a big chunk. ..." Truffer said.

Furthermore, glaciers such as the Tasman—which calve into lakes—tend to be less crevassed, or cracked, at their ends than those that calve into the ocean. This makes such lake-based glaciers more likely to lose big pieces of ice rather than smaller ones.

"A block was probably ready to go, and [the earthquake] just gave it the last kick," Truffer said.

(See "Chile Earthquake Altered Earth Axis, Shortened Day.")

Heavy Rain Eased Ice Breakup

Even before the Christchurch earthquake, tourist guides were already being cautious about not approaching the glacier too closely, due to heavy rain in past weeks, the Herald reported.

The rain had probably raised the lake level, which made it easier for large chunks to break off, Truffer explained. It's likely, he added, that the end of the glacier was floating, not anchored to the lake bed. (See extreme-ice pictures.)

"If you have a floating part of the glacier and you raise lake level, you induce bending [of the ice] that can help the calving process."

Ultimately the ice will melt, but in a cold, glacial lake, that could take as long as a year, he said.

Obama Wrong on DOMA: Constitutional Crisis?

2011-02-24T13:26:00.003-05:00

The following is an article by Adam Winkler, law professor, from 24 Feb, 2011.

First, the e-mail I sent my wife, as she is witness to many of my moments of prescience:

Maria,

here is an article echoing my exact concerns about the Obama Defense of Marriage thing. This is EXACTLY what I was telling you last night when I bored you to sleep. All the comments I have heard by people on TV and the web have been praising Obama and celebratory for gay rights, but my concern from the very beginning, because I am an attorney, was that Obama's actions are extremely unprecedented and unconstitutional. This is a case in which I am very satisfied for the result but very concerned about the methods. This article says it clearly.

(Adam Winkler, Huffington Post, 24 Feb, 2011)

Liberals rejoiced on Wednesday when the Obama Administration, which has often seemed indifferent to gay rights, announced that it would not defend a key provision of the Defense of Marriage Act in court. DOMA, as the law is known, establishes that only opposite-sex marriages are recognized by federal law. While DOMA is a discriminatory law and should be repealed, Obama's decision not to defend it should be condemned.

For decades, presidents, Democrats and Republicans alike, have taken the position that it's the executive's obligation to defend the constitutionality of all federal laws. The basis for this view is the Constitution's command that the president "shall take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed."

But now Obama has declared that if the president doesn't agree with a law--even if the courts say it's constitutional--he can choose not to defend it. This sets a terrible precedent that could well come back to haunt those who are cheering the president's decision. Don't be surprised if a President Palin points to Obama's decision when announcing her refusal to enforce and defend the landmark healthcare reform law because, in her view, the individual mandate is unconstitutional.

The administration decided not to defend DOMA on the basis of a controversial reading of the Constitution. Attorney General Eric Holder's letter to John Boehner, in which the announcement was made, stated that discrimination against gays must meet what the courts call "heightened scrutiny." That means that any law singling out gays must have unusually strong justification.

If only that were the case. Twice the Supreme Court has been asked to hold that discrimination against gay people warrants heightened scrutiny. And twice the Supreme Court has rejected that argument. Instead, the Court has suggested that discrimination against gays only needed to meet a lower standard of rationality. The lower courts asked to rule on the constitutionality of DOMA so far have consistently agreed that heightened review is not appropriate.

In my view, the Supreme Court was wrong to reject heightened scrutiny for sexual orientation discrimination. Nevertheless, that's the law of the land and, for better or worse, it's the Supreme Court, not the president, who gets to make that decision.

The administration had other alternatives. It could have continued to defend the relevant provisions of DOMA in court but drop some of the specious arguments traditionally used to support it--that marriage is only about procreation or that gay people aren't good parents. The administration could even argue that the Supreme Court was wrong to reject heightened scrutiny and that the law should be judged by that higher standard. But to declare unilaterally that the law is unconstitutional, on the basis of an interpretation of the Constitution with little support in Supreme Court doctrine, is a mistake.

Think of the laws that might be undermined by the next Republican president. Senator Rand Paul has argued that the Civil Rights Act may be unconstitutional. Senator Mike Lee has insisted that the federal laws barring child labor were not within Congress's constitutional authority to enact. Some in Republican circles even suggest that the federal government doesn't have the constitutional power to require background checks on gun purchases.

It should take more than a presidential announcement to repeal these vital and important federal laws. Unfortunately, President Obama's decision on DOMA makes that very threat more of a reality.

Ted Tanouye and Ira Hayes

2010-08-31T13:07:00.002-04:00

Ted Tanouye

Ira Hayes

Addendum: Japanese-American troops to receive Congressional Gold Medal, October 5, 2010

Celebrate 225 Years!!

2010-08-29T09:05:00.005-04:00

August, 2010

I am in the Granby Public Library (which has an excellent staff). I'm waiting as the librarian scans, stamps and checks out my material. I see a stack of free refrigerator magnets on the check out counter. I take a magnet and read it. "Celebrate 225 Years, Granby". So nice ol' Granby, Connecticut is celebrating 225 years of existence as a town (1786-2011). Immediately I deconstruct. I think about what I want to say and how to deliver my message, then comment to the librarian, showing her the magnet: "Do you think there are indigenous communities in the area that have refrigerator magnets for free in their libraries which read: "Celebrating 3000 years"? The librarian smiled in that polite "I'm not a leftist" kind of way. Maybe the Granby magnet can be an initiator for some lesson plan in the future.

Lopadotemachoselachogaleokranioleipsanodrimhypotrimmatosilphioparaomelitokatakechymenokichlepikossyphophattoperisteralektryonoptekephalliokigklopeleio

2010-08-18T10:05:00.005-04:00

Lopadotemachoselachogaleokranioleipsanodrimhypotrimmatosilphio

paraomelitokatakechymenokichlepikossyphophattoperisteralektryon

optekephalliokigklopeleiolagoiosiraiobaphetraganopterygon is a fictional dish mentioned in Aristophanes' comedy Assemblywomen.

It is a transliteration of the Ancient Greek word λοπαδο τεμαχο σελαχο γαλεο κρανιο λειψανο δριμ υπο τριμματο σιλφιο καραβο μελιτο κατακεχυ μενο κιχλ επι κοσσυφο φαττο περιστερ αλεκτρυον οπτο κεφαλλιο κιγκλο πελειο λαγῳο σιραιο βαφη τραγανο πτερύγων in the Greek alphabet (1169–74). Liddell & Scott translate this as "name of a dish compounded of all kinds of dainties, fish, flesh, fowl, and sauces."

The original Greek spelling had 171 characters (something which is not obvious in the Roman transcription, depending on the variant) and for centuries it was the longest word known and it is considered the longest word ever to appear in literature.

`Pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis`	45	Longest word in a major dictionary^[3]	Technical; coined to be the longest word
`Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious`	34	Famous for being created for the Mary Poppins film and musical	Coined
`Pseudopseudohypoparathyroidism`	30	Longest non-coined word in a major dictionary^[4]	Technical
`Hippopotomonstrosesquipedalian`	30	Non-technical; meaning a word coined so as to be very long	Coined
`Floccinaucinihilipilification`	29	Longest unchallenged nontechnical word	Coined
`Antidisestablishmentarianism`	28	Longest non-coined and nontechnical word
`Honorificabilitudinitatibus`	27	Longest word in Shakespeare's works	Latin

If that's what passes these days for living large, then I'm happy living small

2010-08-10T09:13:00.003-04:00

Living with less, dare I call it 'anti-consuming', is praised in our pro-consumer media, August, 2010. (amid global economic crisis, at least a crisis down here with the rest of us.)

She had so much.

A two-bedroom apartment. Two cars. Enough wedding china to serve two dozen people.

Yet Tammy Strobel wasn't happy. Working as a project manager with an investment management firm in Davis, Calif., and making about $40,000 a year, she was, as she put it, caught in the "work-spend treadmill."

So one day she stepped off.

Inspired by books and blog entries about living simply, Ms. Strobel and her husband, Logan Smith, both 31, began donating some of their belongings to charity. As the months passed, out went stacks of sweaters, shoes, books, pots and pans, even the television after a trial separation during which it was relegated to a closet. Eventually, they got rid of their cars, too. Emboldened by a Web site that challenges consumers to live with just 100 personal items, Ms. Strobel winnowed down her wardrobe and toiletries to precisely that number.

Her mother called her crazy.

Today, three years after Ms. Strobel and Mr. Smith began downsizing, they live in Portland, Ore., in a spare, 400-square-foot studio with a nice-sized kitchen. Mr. Smith is completing a doctorate in physiology; Ms. Strobel happily works from home as a Web designer and freelance writer. She owns four plates, three pairs of shoes and two pots. With Mr. Smith in his final weeks of school, Ms. Strobel's income of about $24,000 a year covers their bills. They are still car-free but have bikes. One other thing they no longer have: $30,000 of debt.

[See Good Debt vs. Bad Debt]

Ms. Strobel's mother is impressed. Now the couple have money to travel and to contribute to the education funds of nieces and nephews. And because their debt is paid off, Ms. Strobel works fewer hours, giving her time to be outdoors, and to volunteer, which she does about four hours a week for a nonprofit outreach program called Living Yoga.

"The idea that you need to go bigger to be happy is false," she says. "I really believe that the acquisition of material goods doesn't bring about happiness."

While Ms. Strobel and her husband overhauled their spending habits before the recession, legions of other consumers have since had to reconsider their own lifestyles, bringing a major shift in the nation's consumption patterns.

"We're moving from a conspicuous consumption — which is 'buy without regard' — to a calculated consumption," says Marshal Cohen, an analyst at the NPD Group, the retailing research and consulting firm.

Amid weak job and housing markets, consumers are saving more and spending less than they have in decades, and industry professionals expect that trend to continue. Consumers saved 6.4 percent of their after-tax income in June, according to a new government report. Before the recession, the rate was 1 to 2 percent for many years. In June, consumer spending and personal incomes were essentially flat compared with May, suggesting that the American economy, as dependent as it is on shoppers opening their wallets and purses, isn't likely to rebound anytime soon.

On the bright side, the practices that consumers have adopted in response to the economic crisis ultimately could — as a raft of new research suggests — make them happier. New studies of consumption and happiness show, for instance, that people are happier when they spend money on experiences instead of material objects, when they relish what they plan to buy long before they buy it, and when they stop trying to outdo the Joneses.

If consumers end up sticking with their newfound spending habits, some tactics that retailers and marketers began deploying during the recession could become lasting business strategies. Among those strategies are proffering merchandise that makes being at home more entertaining and trying to make consumers feel special by giving them access to exclusive events and more personal customer service.

While the current round of stinginess may simply be a response to the economic downturn, some analysts say consumers may also be permanently adjusting their spending based on what they've discovered about what truly makes them happy or fulfilled.

"This actually is a topic that hasn't been researched very much until recently," says Elizabeth W. Dunn, an associate professor in the psychology department at the University of British Columbia, who is at the forefront of research on consumption and happiness. "There's massive literature on income and happiness. It's amazing how little there is on how to spend your money."

Conspicuous consumption has been an object of fascination going back at least as far as 1899, when the economist Thorstein Veblen published "The Theory of the Leisure Class," a book that analyzed, in part, how people spent their money in order to demonstrate their social status.

And it's been a truism for eons that extra cash always makes life a little easier. Studies over the last few decades have shown that money, up to a certain point, makes people happier because it lets them meet basic needs. The latest round of research is, for lack of a better term, all about emotional efficiency: how to reap the most happiness for your dollar.

So just where does happiness reside for consumers? Scholars and researchers haven't determined whether Armani will put a bigger smile on your face than Dolce & Gabbana. But they have found that our types of purchases, their size and frequency, and even the timing of the spending all affect long-term happiness.

One major finding is that spending money for an experience — concert tickets, French lessons, sushi-rolling classes, a hotel room in Monaco — produces longer-lasting satisfaction than spending money on plain old stuff.

"It's better to go on a vacation than buy a new couch' is basically the idea," says Professor Dunn, summing up research by two fellow psychologists, Leaf Van Boven and Thomas Gilovich. Her own take on the subject is in a paper she wrote with colleagues at Harvard and the University of Virginia: "If Money Doesn't Make You Happy Then You Probably Aren't Spending It Right." (The Journal of Consumer Psychology plans to publish it in a coming issue.)

Thomas DeLeire, an associate professor of public affairs, population, health and economics at the University of Wisconsin in Madison, recently published research examining nine major categories of consumption. He discovered that the only category to be positively related to happiness was leisure: vacations, entertainment, sports and equipment like golf clubs and fishing poles.

Using data from a study by the National Institute on Aging, Professor DeLeire compared the happiness derived from different levels of spending to the happiness people get from being married. (Studies have shown that marriage increases happiness.)

"A $20,000 increase in spending on leisure was roughly equivalent to the happiness boost one gets from marriage," he said, adding that spending on leisure activities appeared to make people less lonely and increased their interactions with others.

According to retailers and analysts, consumers have gravitated more toward experiences than possessions over the last couple of years, opting to use their extra cash for nights at home with family, watching movies and playing games — or for "staycations" in the backyard. Many retailing professionals think this is not a fad, but rather "the new normal."

"I think many of these changes are permanent changes," says Jennifer Black, president of the retailing research company Jennifer Black & Associates and a member of the Governor's Council of Economic Advisors in Oregon. "I think people are realizing they don't need what they had. They're more interested in creating memories."

She largely attributes this to baby boomers' continuing concerns about the job market and their ability to send their children to college. While they will still spend, they will spend less, she said, having reset their priorities.

While it is unlikely that most consumers will downsize as much as Ms. Strobel did, many have been, well, happily surprised by the pleasures of living a little more simply. The Boston Consulting Group said in a June report that recession anxiety had prompted a "back-to-basics movement," with things like home and family increasing in importance over the last two years, while things like luxury and status have declined.

"There's been an emotional rebirth connected to acquiring things that's really come out of this recession," says Wendy Liebmann, chief executive of WSL Strategic Retail, a marketing consulting firm that works with manufacturers and retailers. "We hear people talking about the desire not to lose that — that connection, the moment, the family, the experience."

Current research suggests that, unlike consumption of material goods, spending on leisure and services typically strengthens social bonds, which in turn helps amplify happiness. (Academics are already in broad agreement that there is a strong correlation between the quality of people's relationships and their happiness; hence, anything that promotes stronger social bonds has a good chance of making us feel all warm and fuzzy.)

And the creation of complex, sophisticated relationships is a rare thing in the world. As Professor Dunn and her colleagues Daniel T. Gilbert and Timothy D. Wilson point out in their forthcoming paper, only termites, naked mole rats and certain insects like ants and bees construct social networks as complex as those of human beings. In that elite little club, humans are the only ones who shop.

AT the height of the recession in 2008, Wal-Mart Stores (NYSE: WMT - News) realized that consumers were "cocooning" — vacationing in their yards, eating more dinners at home, organizing family game nights. So it responded by grouping items in its stores that would turn any den into an at-home movie theater or transform a backyard into a slice of the Catskills. Wal-Mart wasn't just selling barbecues and board games. It was selling experiences.

"We spend a lot of time listening to our customers," says Amy Lester, a spokeswoman for Wal-Mart, "and know that they have a set amount to spend and need to juggle to meet that amount."

One reason that paying for experiences gives us longer-lasting happiness is that we can reminisce about them, researchers say. That's true for even the most middling of experiences. That trip to Rome during which you waited in endless lines, broke your camera and argued with your spouse will typically be airbrushed with "rosy recollection," says Sonja Lyubomirsky, a psychology professor at the University of California, Riverside.

Professor Lyubomirsky has a grant from the National Institute of Mental Health to conduct research on the possibility of permanently increasing happiness. "Trips aren't all perfect," she notes, "but we remember them as perfect."

Another reason that scholars contend that experiences provide a bigger pop than things is that they can't be absorbed in one gulp — it takes more time to adapt to them and engage with them than it does to put on a new leather jacket or turn on that shiny flat-screen TV.

"We buy a new house, we get accustomed to it," says Professor Lyubomirsky, who studies what psychologists call "hedonic adaptation," a phenomenon in which people quickly become used to changes, great or terrible, in order to maintain a stable level of happiness.

Over time, that means the buzz from a new purchase is pushed toward the emotional norm.

"We stop getting pleasure from it," she says.

And then, of course, we buy new things.

When Ed Diener, a psychology professor at the University of Illinois and a former president of the International Positive Psychology Association — which promotes the study of what lets people lead fulfilling lives — was house-hunting with his wife, they saw several homes with features they liked.

But unlike couples who choose a house because of its open floor plan, fancy kitchens, great light, or spacious bedrooms, Professor Diener arrived at his decision after considering hedonic-adaptation research.

"One home was close to hiking trails, making going hiking very easy," he said in an e-mail. "Thinking about the research, I argued that the hiking trails could be a factor contributing to our happiness, and we should worry less about things like how pretty the kitchen floor is or whether the sinks are fancy. We bought the home near the hiking trail and it has been great, and we haven't tired of this feature because we take a walk four or five days a week."

Scholars have discovered that one way consumers combat hedonic adaptation is to buy many small pleasures instead of one big one. Instead of a new Jaguar, Professor Lyubomirsky advises, buy a massage once a week, have lots of fresh flowers delivered and make phone calls to friends in Europe. Instead of a two-week long vacation, take a few three-day weekends.

"We do adapt to the little things," she says, "but because there's so many, it will take longer."

Before credit cards and cellphones enabled consumers to have almost anything they wanted at any time, the experience of shopping was richer, says Ms. Liebmann of WSL Strategic Retail. "You saved for it, you anticipated it," she says.

In other words, waiting for something and working hard to get it made it feel more valuable and more stimulating.

In fact, scholars have found that anticipation increases happiness. Considering buying an iPad? You might want to think about it as long as possible before taking one home. Likewise about a Caribbean escape: you'll get more pleasure if you book a flight in advance than if you book it at the last minute.

Once upon a time, with roots that go back to medieval marketplaces featuring stalls that functioned as stores, shopping offered a way to connect socially, as Ms. Liebmann and others have pointed out. But over the last decade, retailing came to be about one thing: unbridled acquisition, epitomized by big-box stores where the mantra was "stack 'em high and let 'em fly" and online transactions that required no social interaction at all — you didn't even have to leave your home.

The recession, however, may force retailers to become reacquainted with shopping's historical roots.

"I think there's a real opportunity in retail to be able to romance the experience again," says Ms. Liebmann. "Retailers are going to have to work very hard to create that emotional feeling again. And it can't just be 'Here's another thing to buy.' It has to have a real sense of experience to it."

Industry professionals say they have difficulty identifying any retailer that is managing to do this well today, with one notable exception: Apple (NasdaqGS: AAPL - News), which offers an interactive retail experience, including classes.

Marie Driscoll, head of the retailing group at Standard & Poor's, says chains have to adapt to new consumer preferences by offering better service, special events and access to designers. Analysts at the Boston Consulting Group advise that companies offer more affordable indulgences, like video games that provide an at-home workout for far less than the cost of a gym membership.

Mr. Cohen of the NPD Group says some companies are doing this. Best Buy (NYSE: BBY - News) is promoting its Geek Squad, promising shoppers before they buy that complicated electronic thingamajig that its employees will hold their hands through the installation process and beyond.

"Nowadays with the economic climate, customers definitely are going for a quality experience," says Nick DeVita, a home entertainment adviser with the Geek Squad. "If they're going to spend their money, they want to make sure it's for the right thing, the right service."

With competition for consumer dollars fiercer than it's been in decades, retailers have had to make the shopping experience more compelling. Mr. Cohen says automakers are offering 30-day test drives, while some clothing stores are promising free personal shoppers. Malls are providing day care while parents shop. Even on the Web, retailers are connecting on customers on Facebook, Twitter and Foursquare, hoping to win their loyalty by offering discounts and invitations to special events.

For the last four years, Roko Belic, a Los Angeles filmmaker, has been traveling the world making a documentary called "Happy." Since beginning work on the film, he has moved to a beach in Malibu from his house in the San Francisco suburbs.

San Francisco was nice, but he couldn't surf there.

"I moved to a trailer park," says Mr. Belic, "which is the first real community that I've lived in in my life." Now he surfs three or four times a week. "It definitely has made me happier," he says. "The things we are trained to think make us happy, like having a new car every couple of years and buying the latest fashions, don't make us happy."

Mr. Belic says his documentary shows that "the one single trait that's common among every single person who is happy is strong relationships."

Buying luxury goods, conversely, tends to be an endless cycle of one-upmanship, in which the neighbors have a fancy new car and — bingo! — now you want one, too, scholars say. A study published in June in Psychological Science by Ms. Dunn and others found that wealth interfered with people's ability to savor positive emotions and experiences, because having an embarrassment of riches reduced the ability to reap enjoyment from life's smaller everyday pleasures, like eating a chocolate bar.

Alternatively, spending money on an event, like camping or a wine tasting with friends, leaves people less likely to compare their experiences with those of others — and, therefore, happier.

Of course, some fashion lovers beg to differ. For many people, clothes will never be more than utilitarian. But for a certain segment of the population, clothes are an art form, a means of self-expression, a way for families to pass down memories through generations. For them, studies concluding that people eventually stop deriving pleasure from material things don't ring true.

"No way," says Hayley Corwick, who writes the popular fashion blog Madison Avenue Spy. "I could pull out things from my closet that I bought when I was 17 that I still love."

She rejects the idea that happiness has to be an either-or proposition. Some days, you want a trip, she says; other days, you want a Tom Ford handbag.

Ms. Strobel — our heroine who moved into the 400-square foot apartment — is now an advocate of simple living, writing in her spare time about her own life choices at Rowdykittens.com.

"My lifestyle now would not be possible if I still had a huge two-bedroom apartment filled to the gills with stuff, two cars, and 30 grand in debt," she says.

"Give away some of your stuff," she advises. "See how it feels."

Escape from Freedom / Fear of Freedom

2010-08-07T08:52:00.005-04:00

Erich Fromm

Fear of Freedom was published in 1941

modern man still is anxious and tempted to surrender his freedom to dictators, or to lose it by transforming himself into a small cog in the machine, well fed, and well clothed, [and well entertained - Chomsky], yet not a free man but an automaton.
Man's brain lives in the twentieth century; the heart of most men lives still in the Stone Age.
the abolition of external domination ==> freedom for the individual
Is the desire for freedom something inherent in human nature? Is freedom only the absence of external pressure or is it also the presence of something? Can freedom become a burden, too heavy for man to bear, something he tries to escape from? Freedom a cherished goal or a threat?
Is there a hidden satisfaction in submitting, and what is its essence?
The child becomes more free to develop and express its own individual self unhampered by those ties which were limiting it. But the child also becomes more free from a world which gave it security and reassurance.
Acting against the command of authority, committing a sin, is in its positive human aspect the first act of freedom, that is, the first human act.
The result of this progressive destruction of the medieval social structure was the emergence of the individual in the modern sense.
the individual is left alone; everything depends on his own effort[==> feelings of isolation, anxiety, anomie]
while Luther freed people from the authority of the Church, he made them submit to a much more tyrannical authority, that of God who insisted on complete submission of man and annihilation of the individual self as the essential condition to salvation.
We believe that freedom of worship constitutes one of the final victories for freedom. We do not sufficiently recognize that while it is a victory against those powers of the Church and State which did not allow man to worship according to his own conscience, the modern individual has lost to a great extent the inner capacity to have faith in anything which is not provable by the methods of the natural sciences. (although man has rid himself of old enemies of freed, new enemies of a different nature have arisen)

Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong

2010-07-16T09:32:00.011-04:00

James W. Loewen (1995, 2007) - revised and updated version

Dedicated to all American history teachers who teach against their books

Introduction (to the second edition)

pp. xvi-xvii students can and must become critical readers; good citizens need to be able to evaluate the claims that our leaders and would-be leaders make. They must read critically, winnow fact from fraud, and seek to understand causes and results in the past. These skills must stand at the center of any competent history course.

Introduction

p. 6 the titles of these textbooks tell a lot: Triumph of the American Nation, Land of Promise, etc; such titles differ from many of the other titles in other subjects; Chemistry books, as an example, a titled Chemistry or Principles of Chemistry, not Triumph of the Molecule.

p. 8 history textbooks also fail to show students that history is a furious debate informed by evidence and reason. Textbooks encourage students to believe that history is facts to be learned. It never occurs to a student to question the textbook. [But they must!]

Handicapped by History (The Process of Hero-Making)

p. 11 "By idolizing those whom we honor, we do a disservice both to them and to ourselves . . . We fail to recognize that we could go and do likewise." (Charles V. Willie)

p. 19 Ho Chi Minh appealed to Woodrow Wilson at Versailles for self-determination for Vietnam.

p. 19 Wilson was an outspoken white supremacist

p. 20 "Omitting or absolving Wilson's racism foes beyond concealing a character blemish. It is overtly racist."

p. 21 Spurred by Birth of a Nation, William Simmons of Georgia reestablishes the Ku Klux Klan.

p. 24 most textbooks do not explain the results of the 1920 presidential elections in which Wilson's successor, Democrati James Cox, was crushed by Warren G. Harding, who never even campaigned. Harding got 64-percent of the major-party votes, the biggest landslide in the history of American presidential politics. (Wilson would be widely despised in the 1920s)

p. 27 "The notion that opportunity might be UNEQUAL in AMerica, that not everyone has the power to rise in the world, is anathema to textbooks, and to many teachers."

1493 (The True Importance of Christopher Columbus)

p. 36 Europeans believed in a transportable, proselytizing religion that rationalized conquest. (Followers of Islam share this characteristic). Typically, after "discovering" an island and encountering a tribe of American Indians new to them, the Spaniards would read aloud (in Spanish) what became to be called the "the Requirement." Having just satisfied their consciences by offering the Native Americans a chance to convert to Christianity, the Spaniards then felt free to do whatever they wanted with the people they had just discovered."

p. 38 ancient Phoenicians and Egyptians sailed AT LEAST as far as Ireland and England, reached the Madeira and the Azores, traded with the aboriginals of the Canary Islands, and sailed around AFrica all BEFORE 600 B.C. centuries before Henry the Navigator. "our culture views modern technology as a European development."

p. 39 Cultures do not evolve in a vacuum; diffusion of ideas is perhaps the most important cause of cultural development. Contact with other cultures often triggers a cultural flowering. Anthropologists calls this syncretism; combining ideas from two or more cultures to form something new.

If textbooks allowed for controversy, they would show students which claims rest on strong evidence, which on softer ground. They would also be introducing students to the various methods and forms of evidence--oral history, written records, cultural similarities, linguistic changes, human genetics, pottery, archaeological dating, plant migrations. Unfortunately, textbooks are locked into a rhetoric of certainty. History is presented as "answers", not "questions."

p. 49 few people on both sides of the atlantic believed in 1492 that the world was flat. It casts a circular shadow on the moon. Sailors see its roundness when ships disappear over the horizon, hull first, then sails. "Washington Irving wins credit for popularizing the flat-earth fable in 1828."

p. 52 to make a better myth, textbook authors want the voyage to seem harder than it was, so they invent bad weather. And they make the trip seem longer then it really was, overlooking Columbus's stopover in the Canary Islands.

p. 53 any altering of the ship's log records was done not to fool the sailors about how far they had sailed (most of the crew were competent sailors and knew how far they had sailed, in fact the PInzon brothers, who captained the Nina and the PInta, were more experienced than Columbus. The deception was done by Columbus to keep his route to the Indies a secret. ($$$)

Columbus introduced two phenomena that revolutionized race relations and transformed the modern world: the taking of land, wealth, and labor from the indigenous, leading to their extermination, and the transatlantic slave trade, which created a racial underclass.

p. 54 comparing the Columbus encounter with the indigenous (any European armed meeting of the New world inhabitants) with H.G. Wells's War of the Worlds allegory (earthlings encountering a technologically advanced alien)

p. 57 Haiti's pre-Columbian population high end estimate at 8 million; by 1516, some 12,000 remained.

p. 62 modifying one's opinions to bring them into line with one's actions or planned action is the most common outcome of the process known as cognitive dissonance

p. 65 "We understand Columbus and all European explorers and settlers more clearly if we treat 1492 as a meeting of three cultures (Euro, Amer, and Afri), rather than a discovery by one

The Truth About the First Thanksgiving

p. 71 between 1565 and 1568 Spaniards explored the Carolinas, built forts there, which were burned by Indians; Spanish Jews came here seeking religious freedom, settling in New Mexico in the late 1500s. "Few Americans know that one-third of the United States has been Spanish longer than it has been "American.""

p. 78 some population estimates of the Americas at one hundred million

p. 79 the archetypes of "virgin continent" and "primitive peoples" soon influenced population estimates downward (scholars reduced estimates to match the stereotype)

p. 80 estimates for population of North America and Canada are from 10 - 20 million

this should prompt classroom discussion as to why estimates vary, why historians vary (I did this with most of my 6th grade discussion on the Maya and Aztec)

job of history teachers as presenting facts (names, dates, places) to students to passively learn and digest. But such an approach "keeps students ignorant of the reasoning, arguments, and weighing of evidence that go into social science."

p. 85 "The Pilgrims hardly started from scratch in a wilderness." european settlers encountered no "wilderness." they were pitching tents right in the heart of pre-existing Native populations. (as with the Columbus myth, great difficulties makes for a better story)

p. 89 Thanksgiving as "Civil religion", not history.

p. 90 "Today Americans believe as part of our political understanding of the world that we are the most generous nation on earth in terms of foreign aid, overlooking the fact that the net dollar flow from almost every Third World nation runs toward the United States."

p. 92 "The antidote to feel-good history is not feel-bad history but honest and inclusive history."

Red Eyes

p. 93 "Memory says, 'I did that.' Pride replies, 'I could not have done that.' Eventually, memory yeilds." -- Friedrich Nietzsche.

p. 94 the usual convention of depicting fully clothed Europeans meeting with half-naked Indians (primitive v. civilized)

p. 96 "'Possibly', however, does not fit with textbook style, which is to present definitive answers."

Walking across Beringia is only a hypothesis, we should also give other hypotheses consideration, like using boats to cross oceans or to hug coast.

The school year could begin with a debate among students who have different dates and routes--each student gathering evidence to support.

Students should be excited by this (history class is no longer boring). Students would realize that history still remains to be done (and this is what I taught to my 6th graders when discussing the Maya and Aztec).

p. 97 Beringia land crossing archaeological evidence is slim, even today; many archaeologists believe in boat crossings; after all, people got to Australia over 40,000 years ago, and no matter how much ice locked up water and extended coastlines, one could never walk to Australia.

p. 100 too many textbooks compare rural NEW America to urban Europe; but comparing Tenochtitlan (150+ thousand inhabitants) to rural Scotland should be included in the discussion "In what ways do we prefer the civilized Third Reich to the more primitive Arawak society that Columbus encountered?" (how Native societies changed after contact: Europeans did not Civilize or Settle the roaming Indians, but had an opposite impact"

p. 114 U.S. General Philip Sheridan, famous for saying "The only good Indian is a dead Indian", but he understood why the Indians pushed back so violently, for he also said "We took away their country and their means of support, and it was for this and against this they made war. Could anyone expect less?"

p. 115 American Indian warfare absorbed 80 percent of the entire federal budget during George Washington's administration and successors would similarly be pressed (yet his is rarely mentioned)

p. 121 1778 the young U.S. suffers major defeat when Tories and Senecas rout 400 militia and regulars at Forty Fort, PA

"Not one text book points out that the Dutch paid the wrong tribe for Manhattan." The Dutch paid the Canarsees (native to Brooklyn) and it probably was not beads, but kettles, knives, axes, guns, blankets.

"The biggest single purchase from the wrong tribe occurred in 1803" (Jefferson's purchase of Louisiana from France) France actually sold its CLAIM to this territory. The U.S. continued to pay off Indians for portions of this territory into the 19th century; our Army also fought them for it.

p. 127 in 1778 when Delaware Indians proposed that Native Americans be admitted to the union as a separate state, Congress refused even to consider the idea.

p. 128 White settlers did not want to acculturate the natives; it was not in the settlers' interest ($); in 1789 Mass legislature passes a law prohibiting teaching Natives how to read and write under penalty of death.

p. 130 our textbooks still stereotype Native Americans as roaming primitive hunting folk, hence unfortunate victims of progress (descendants of the settlers can feel good about themselves if history is written this way "Casting Indian history as a tragedy because Native Americans could not or would not acculturate is feel-good history for whites.

Gone With the Wind: The Invisibility of Racism in American History Textbooks

p. 139 Slavery as THE underlying reason that South Carolina seceded ["Declaration of the Immediate Causes Which Induce and Justify the Secession of South Carolina from the Federal Union] the northern states were not following the 1850 Fugitive Slave Act; SC was for states' rights when it came to SOuthern states seceding, but SC was vehemently against states' rights when it came to northern states refusing to follow Fugitive Slave Act laws. ["Historically, whatever faction has been out of power in America has pushed for states' rights."]

"Only after they lost control of the executive branch in the 1860 election did slave owners begin to suggest limiting federal power."

textbooks that do not state slavery as the major cause f the Civil War is getting it wrong

why should visitors to Colonial Williamsburg be shocked to find out that slavery existed there--in the heart of plantation Virginia. and that the first colony to legalize slavery was Massachusetts.

p. 144 !!!!! does your history text index words such as racism? they should, because words like this are a part of American history. [lesson idea: look at the index; what is missing; what is included; why?]

p. 145 "In omitting racism or treating it so poorly, history textbooks shirk a critical responsibility. Not all whites are or have been racist. Moreover, levels of racism have changed over time. If textbooks were to explain this, they would give students some perspective on what caused racism in the past, what perpetuates it today, and how it might be reduced in the future."

textbooks, although they included African Slavery, minimize white complicity (and ignore Northern states complicity). Slavery is uncaused, a tragedy, rather than a wrong perpetrated by other humans. the emotion textbooks generate about it is one of sadness, and not one of anger.

p. 147 Patrick Henry "Give me liberty of give me death", was also a significant slave owner, freed none at his death.; Thomas Jefferson, had 175 slaves at the time of writing the Declaration; both men wrestled with this schizophrenia

p. 149 should textbooks encourage students to worship Jefferson, or should they help students to understand Jefferson, wrestle with the problems Jefferson wrestled with, grasp his accomplishments, but acknowledge his failures.

p. 153 Stephen Douglas as hero? not to African American or Native American students, "this government of ours is founded on the white basis.

p. 157 in the Reconstruction south , African Americans never took over; all governors were white, almost all legislatures had white majorities. Whites did not take back control of state governments; they never lost it.

p. 159, et passim -- white violence in reconstruction south was THE ISSUE; "Negro" education was also attacked, mobs burned schools, churches used as schools, beat and drove away teachers, and in a few instances murdered the teachers who dared to educate African Americans;

history text sentences so vague as to be content-free; nothing ever causes anything; things just happen

p. 163 Jackie Robinson was NOT the first black player in major league baseball; Blacks had played in the 19th century, but by 1889 whites had forced them out; in 1911 black jockeys eliminated from running in the Kentucky Derby, because they won 15 of the first 28 derbies.

p. 166 White mobs killing Blacks; 1919 Chicago Riot; 1921 Tulsa Riots (dynamite dropped from planes over Black neighborhoods, 75+ killed); Springfield, Illinois riot in 1908

p. 171 "When textbooks make racism invisible in American history, they obstruct our already poor ability to see it in the present."

"Educators justify teaching history because it gives us perspective on the present. If there is one issue in the present to which authors should relate the history they tell, the issue is racism. But as long as history textbooks make white racism invisible in the the twentieth century, neither they nor the students who use them will be able to analyze race relations intelligently into the twenty-first century."

John Brown and Abraham Lincoln: The Invisibility of Antiracism in American History Textbooks

p. 174 in history textbooks, the choice of language such as "fanatical figure", "fiendish butchery" etc is hardly objective. so be wary of it when you see it

p. 179 a white person does not have to be crazy to die for black equality

p. 181 books do not mention when Brown was a defender at Osawatomie, but only his actions at Pottawatomie, where he was the attacker.

p. 194 Civil War was fought not just between North and South, but within the Confederacy itself, between Unionists and Confederates

p. 201 "Everyone who supported black rights in the South during Reconstruction did so at personal risk." Simply walking to school to teach could be life-threatening

The Land of Opportunity

p. 204 "the power to rise in the world is not within the reach of everyone." -- Helen Keller

"The history of a nation is, unfortunately, too easily written as the history of its dominant class." -- Kwane Nkrumah

p. 205 labor history, like slavery, happened long ago, and was CORRECTED long ago; therefore, today, labor disputes, racism are dead issues

p. 209 while death does not discriminate, poor health does; poor health is concentrated in the lower class; social security therefore goes to people who live longer (rich), and the poor of health do not live long.

Watching Big Brother: What Textbooks Teach About the Federal Government

p. 228 Guatemala and Jacobo Arbenz in 1954; United Fruit Company is hit hard by Arbenz' efforts at land reform, highway and railway building, both of which would lead to breaking up the fruit trade monopoly

p. 232 textbooks portray the U.S. as an idealistic actor, responding generously to other nations' social and economic woes. ("May all your interventions be humanitarian")

p. 234 textbooks can't mention certain U.S. foreign interventions without also mentioning that the U.S. covered them up. Do democracies lie and cover up? Whitewashing the federal government in order that school children will respect it.

p. 236 textbooks simply credit the government for most of what gets done. THE PEOPLE are never given credit (See Howard Zinn and Chomsky)

p. 239 Not only do textbooks fail to blame the federal government for is opposition to the civil rights movement, many actually credit the government, almost single-handedly, for the advances made during the period." ("A power no government can suppress") - The Hollywood Approach to Civil Rights (Mississippi Burning gets most of the history WRONG!!!)

p. 241 the environmental movement is treated similarly in our textbooks; THE PEOPLE have done nothing; all credit is due to presidents and Congress

p. 243 Canada as haven for Tories, for runaway slaves, for Vietnam draft dodgers; but to teach this is to also teach that there exist some citizens who want no part of being a citizen (compare current immigration debate, people loving to come here)

p. 243 is criticism incompatible with citizenship? must the student always take the government's side, in order to breed respect?

See No Evil: Choosing Not to Look at the War in Vietnam

p. 254 Vietnam questions a thinking student should ask:

Why did the US fight in Vietnam?

What was the war like before the US entered it? How did the US change it?

How did the war change the US?

Why did an antiwar movement become so strong in the US? What were its criticisms of the war in Vietnam? Were they right?

Why did the US lose the war?

What lesson(s) should we take from the experience?

students should be invited to come to their own conclusions (textbooks too often present information as the "right and final" answer to all questions, even unresolved controversies)

p. 258 high school students have a right to enough knowledge about Vietnam to participate intelligently in such debates, in future elections; for they are the people who will be fighting in our next war, whether it resembles Vietnam or not

Down the Memory Hole: The Disappearance of the Recent Past

"We see things not as they are but as we are." -- Anais Nin

"Patriotism can flourish only where racism and nationalism are given no quarter. We should never mistake patriotism for nationalism. A patriot is one who loves his homeland. A nationalist is one who scorns the homelands of others." -- Johannes Rau

"Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them that they are being attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism." -- Hermann Goering

p. 261 no single historic truth exists of which teachers and students must memorize; information is lost as well as gained over time; the social practices of the period when history is written largely determine that history's perspective on the past.

p. 266 on September 10, 2001, what did the World Trade Center buildings symbolize? most visitors on that day would not have said "world peace" or "the cooperation of men";

p. 269 most Americans as ethnocentric; U.S. is biggest, best, most democratic "Any history course that further increases this already robust ethnocentrism only decreases students' ability to learn from other cultures." (and we have a lot to learn from other cultures)

students must be enabled to us history to understand (resolve) what happens today; when history is sugarcoated (in order to breed respect) we are not empowering our children

p. 271 "Cheerful prose will reassure students only until the next attack. Then they will feel cheated." (and they will have contempt and distrust for teachers, authority, the system. the respect we try to breed will be undermined)

p. 274 we attacked Iraq precisely because of its lack of power; we attacked not because of WMDs but precisely because Iraq DID NOT have them; this is why we hesitate (at least now) to attack any other country that has nukes, ad this is why Iran is hastening to get the bomb; having the bomb assures that the US will not invade you.

"The past is never dead. It's not even past." William Faulkner (Past is prologue); we must not deprive our students this perspective about the issues that most affect them. Students are taking away little from history classes that they can then apply in the real adult world.

Progress Is Our Most Important Product

p. 281 If we understand properly what has caused what in the past, we may be able to predict what will happen next and even adopt national policies informed by our knowledge. Surely helping students learn to do so is the key reason for teaching history in the first place.

p. 288 if other parts of the world achieved our economic success, the earth would become a desert; AMericans are superconsumers; the US wants everyone around the globe to achieve our US political success (democracy), but none must achieve our economic success

Why Is History Taught Like This?

p. 305 (Paulo Freire) "It would be extremely naive to expect the dominant classes to develop a type of education that would enable subordinate classes to perceive social injustices critically."

p. 309 "Marketing textbooks is like marketing fishing lures: the point is to catch fishermen, not fish."

p. 311 each Harry Potter book contains hundreds of pairs of facing text pages with no illustrations, no sidebars--nothing but the main story; cluttering textbooks with such nonsense seems aimed at textbook adoption committees and not aimed at children!!

p. 325 "No publisher tries to sell a textbook with the claim that it is more accurate than its competitors."

p. 328 "SInce textbooks employ a rhetoric of certainty, it is hard for teachers to introduce either controversy or uncertainty into the classroom without deviating from the usual standards of discourse. Teachers rarely say 'I don't know' in class and rarely discuss how one might then find the answer. 'I don't know' violates a norm. The teacher, like the textbook, is supposed to know. Students, for their part, are supposed to learn what teachers and textbook authors already know."

p. 331 the inquiry approach leads to higher student interest in contemporary political issues. But inquiry teaching requires much more active teaching (god forbid). Classes can't plow through the curriculum on a set schedule with dead lines for the Am Rev, deadlines for Gettysburg, etc.

p. 333 society determines what goes into history textbooks (and some biology textbooks); by contrast the mathematics profession determines what goes into math books; Only in history is accuracy so political.

p. 336 "There is a way to teach truth to a child at any grade level."

p. 338 a contradiction of sorts for those who write and push nationalist textbooks; shielding children from violence, instilling in them love of country; "But if the country is so wonderful, why must we lie?"

What Is the Result of Teaching History Like This?

p. 342 If knowledge is power, ignorance cannot be bliss (RATM); Emotion is the glue that causes history to stick. Students should read real voices from the past; more true emotion is needed; similarly, textbooks discourage students from seeking to learn history from their families our communities.

p. 344 "Throughout the school year, in a thousand little ways, American history offends many students."

Afterword: The Future Lies Ahead--And What to Do About Them

"Once you have learned how to ask questions--relevant and appropriate and substantial--you have learned how to learn and no one can keep you from learning whatever you want or need to know." --- Neil Postman and Charles Weingartner

"Do not try to satisfy your vanity by teaching a great many things. Awaken people's curiosity. It is enough to open minds; do not overload them." -- Anatole France

p. 356 all students need to become crap detectors -- independent learners who can sift through arguments and evidence and make reasoned judgments; schools must help students do this, not stifle their abilities to do so

p. 358 for students to disagree with teacher interpretation is OK, so long as students back up their disagreement with historical work; argumentation based on evidence. People have a right to their own opinions, but not a right to their own facts.

"Teachers do not have to know everything to facilitate independent student learning."

When dealing with news shows, newspapers, historical movies, textbooks, museums, etc, Students must ask the following:

when and why was something written
whose point of view is presented
is the account believable
is the account backed up by other sources
how is one supposed to feel about the America that has been presented

Eating Animals

2010-07-12T10:03:00.003-04:00

Jonathan Safran Foer (2009)

Americans spend $34 billion on their companion animals every year
Despite the fact that it's perfectly legal in forty-four states, eating man's best friend is as taboo as a man eating his best friend. Even the most enthusiastic (American) carnivores won't eat dogs.
3 to 4 million dogs are euthanized annually. This amounts to millions of pounds of meat now being thrown away every year. The simple disposal of euthanized animals is an enormous ecological and economic problem.
in America, millions of dogs and cats euthanized in animal shelters every year become the food for our food. (Almost twice as many dogs and cats are euthanized as are adopted.)
Eating animals has an invisible quality (Carol Adams's absent referent). Thinking about eating dogs is one way of looking askance and making something invisible visible.
Bycatch - average shrimp trawling operation throws 80 - 90 percent of the sea animals it captures back overboard, dead and dying, some are endangered species. So when out-of-work shrimpers in Louisiana complain about British Petroleum and the gross environmental damage BP is doing to the Gulf of Mexico, it is fair to say that shrimpers are also doing environmental damage. What if our food had labels letting us know that 26 POUNDS OF OTHER SEA ANIMALS WERE KILLED AND TOSSED BACK INTO THE OCEAN FOR EVERY 1 POUND OF THIS SHRIMP. The same with the tuna industry.
CFE - Common Farming Exceptions make legal any method of raising farmed animals so long as it is commonly practiced within the industry.
Downer - some downer animals are indeed sick or injured, BUT require only water and res to be spared a slow, painful death. But taking care of these animals is too costly; euthanizing them is too costly, so it is perfectly legal in the industry to let the downers die or toss them live into dumpsters.
According to the UN, the livestock sector is responsible for 18 percent of greenhouse gas emissions, around 40 percent more than the entire transportation sector combined. also land degradation, climate change and air pollution, water shortage and water pollution, loss of biodiversity. Simply put, if you are eating factory-farmed animal products, you cannot call yourself an environmentalist.
History has shown that people are perfectly capable of loving animals and eating them.
The source of the industry's immense power is not obscure. WE GIVE IT TO THEM.
The highest rates of osteoporosis are seen in countries where people consume the most dairy foods.
A breed, unlike a species, is not a natural phenomenon. Breeds are maintained by farmers who selectively mate animals with particular features.
farmers breed animals that suffer more acutely because their bodies also display characteristics that the industry and consumers demand.
there is almost no waste-treatment infrastructure for farmed animals; farmed animals in just the U.S. produce 130 times as much waste as the human population!!!
cost-benefit analysis: is it better for the corporation's bottom line to pay for pollution violations than it is to pay for altering the current system that pollutes.
trawlers are cruel - when nets are hauled up from the depths, decompression causes eyes to pop out and internal organs to come out of mouths.
animal agriculture uses 756 million tons of grain and corn per year, much more than enough to adequately feed the 1.4 billion humans who are living in dire poverty (Frances Moore Lappe)
reducing (But never eliminating) the violence inherent in being aline (all life is suffering)
in order to eat animals, one has to forget not only that animals are killed, but how
factory farming isn't about feeding people; it's about money.
We can't plead ignorance, only indifference
The factory farm will come to an end because of its absurd economics someday. It is radically unsustainable. The earth will eventually shake off factory farming; the only question is whether we will get shaken off along with it.

Surviving genocide, because we have to.

2010-06-29T09:13:00.004-04:00

John Trudell

"Earth is a living entity. It is not in man's destiny to destroy the earth. That's arrogance. What it is man's destiny to do is to destroy civilized man's ability to live with the earth. We, as human beings, if we take responsibility for our lives and live our lives in a coherent manner, in as coherent a manner as we possibly can, then we will have an influence in curing this disease [viz. anthropocentrism]. But the earth will not allow man to destroy the earth. The antibiotic will come, in a planetary sense (a global pathogen, ozone depletion, solar radiation, some cosmic burp, warfare, resource wars, reality TV). In the end (man's end), the earth will continue on." [anthropocentric to think that man can destroy earth. man can only destroy man (as well as a few ecosystems) but earth will continue. Al Gore's book is better titled "Mankind in the Balance". See more of my notes from "The World Without Us".] [see also Jonathan Foer, as a dog shaking off fleas, mother earth may shake off humans if they continue to hyper-tax the global ecosystem with factory farming.]

La historia me absolverá

2010-06-28T09:48:00.004-04:00

History Will Absolve Me

criticism is not permitted. No books or newspapers except those sanctioned by the regime.

Jails filled with prisoners.

March 1968, Castro makes private business illegal. Street vendors, shoe repair shops. Fixing a toaster in Cuba has now become a matter of state.

2001: A Space Odyssey

2010-06-26T16:49:00.006-04:00

Arthur C. Clarke (1968)

from the forward

"the barriers of distance are crumbling; one day we shall meet our next equals, or our masters, among the stars."
"please remember: this is only a work of fiction.
The truth, as always, will be far stranger."

"the ancestor of sadness"
"he unmistakably held in his proto-homo genes the promise of humanity."
"In the midst of plenty, he was slowly starving to death." [proto-homo had no natural weapons, defenses, and he was not a hunter of flesh, . . . yet!]
"amid constellations that no human eye would ever see." [because with great lengths f time, the night sky changes]
In Part I"Primeval Light", Moon-Watcher and his clan refer to the other rival clan as "the Others" (compare with ABC's "Lost")
"In the caves, between spells of fitful dozing and fearful waiting, were being born the nightmares of generations yet to be." [growls of the night leopards, cries of clan members being killed by furtive feline stalkers]
"The tools they [Moon-Watchers clan] had been programmed to use [by the ebon Monolith] were simple enough, yet they could change this world and make the man-ape its masters."
p. 30 "For in using clubs and flints, their hands had developed a dexterity found nowhere else in the animal kingdom, permitting them to make still better tools, which in turn developed their limbs and brains further. It was an accelerating, cumulative process, and at its end was Man. (thanks to the monolith for showing - programming - Moon-watcher and his clan)
p. 30 "They had learned to speak, and so had won their first great victory over time. Now the knowledge of one generation could be handed on to the next, so that each age could profit from those that had gone before." (compare James Burke, and how modern man is nothing if he is not shown the way by the prior generation. A baby born today has no greater instincts than those men born 100 years, ago, 1000 years ago, and further. Technology is nothing to us if the prior generation does not show us how to use it. Same with language; food growing skills; hunting skills.)
p. 30 "Unlike the animals, who knew only the present, Man had acquired a past; and he was beginning to grope toward a future."
p. 52 "The more wonderful the means of communication, the more trivial, tawdry, or depressing its contents seemed to be. Accidents, crimes, natural and man-made disasters, threats of conflict, gloomy editorials--these still seemed to be the main concern of the millions of words being sprayed into the ether." (So what, in 2010, has changed. If not, media today is more trivial, tawdry, and depressing)
p. 190 "When Discovery had emptied her propellant tanks, she would be as helpless and inert as any comet or asteroid, a powerless prisoner of gravitation."
(on landing on / inside the monolith on Japetus, orbit Saturn, David Bowman stating back to Mission Control "The thing's hollow--it goes on forever--and--oh my God!--it's full of stars!" [the monolith on earth was a transmitter, should the experiment conducted on earth prove successful and man, now armed with intelligence, left his planet and began exploring the moon and space. the monolith on Japetus was a "Star Gate"]
p. 230 "He [Bowman] was retrogressing down the corridors of time, being drained of knowledge and experience as he swept back toward his childhood. But nothing was being lost; all that he had ever been, at every moment of his life, was being transferred to safer keeping. Even as one David Bowman ceased to exist, another became immortal."
p. 231 "Now, at last, the headlong regression was slackening; the wells of memory were nearly dry. Time flowed more and more sluggishly, approaching a moment of stasis--as a swinging pendulum, at the limit of its arc, seems frozen for one eternal instant, before the next cycle begins."
the Star-Child floating in space before Earth, witnessing nuclear annihilation -- p. 236 "For though he was master of the world, he was not quite sure what to do next." "But he would think of something."

What's so shocking about a lion burger

2010-06-23T19:01:00.002-04:00

Mesa restaurant's lion burgers draw protests

by Stephanie Russo - Jun. 22, 2010 02:16 PM
The Arizona Republic

A Mesa restaurant owner is providing customers a South African experience to honor the World Cup on Wednesday and Thursday, serving burgers made with African lion meat.

But the novelty meal is creating a backlash.

Il Vinaio restaurant in downtown Mesa has received more than 150 emails from protestors as well as a bomb threat, owner Cameron Selogie said Tuesday.

According to Selogie, African lions are on the protected list, but not endangered.

"Because it is from a farm, it in no way affects the scarcity of lions in Africa," Selogie said.

The restaurant ordered five pounds of the African lion meat from a USDA regulated free-range farm in Illinois, which Selogie said he researched to make sure they were humane. After some positive feedback and more reservations were made, however, they ordered five more pounds.

Selogie estimates that only 15 of the burgers will be served each night.

During one of the restaurant's Wine-Pairing dinners, where they serve wine with other uncommon meats such as wild boar, customers heard about the availability of lion meat and seemed interested in trying it. Selogie was inspired by the FIFA World Cup's location and decided to serve the meat to coincide with the games.

The restaurant advertised their decision through their e-mail newsletter club to keep the attention to a minimum, but one member and animal activist, Susan Cooper, spread the word.

Cooper said she called the restaurant to clarify their newsletter, thinking the "lion meat" was a joke or a name, but when she discovered it was not she informed other animal advocates about what she calls a "snob appeal" dish.

"I'm thoroughly disgusted to say the least," Cooper said. "I've gotten information around to the animal community and everyone is thoroughly disgusted too."

USDA spokesman Jim Brownlee said lion meat is an uncommon dish, but he knew of no prohibitions against it. Selogie said Il Vinaio will be the first restaurant in Arizona to serve it.

The lion burgers, which will be mixed with ground beef, will be served with corn and spiced kettle chips. The restaurant will offer a South African wine to complement the $21 dish.

Selogie has interacted with the protesters and replied to their emails.

While he does not expect much will happen over the two days, he has informed Mesa Police and bought bottled water for any pickets that may show up at the door each night and according to Cooper, they intend to.

"We have been interacting with several of the animal activists and we committed to making a donation to the ASPCA after this, because we are animal lovers," Selogie said.

Selogie did not want to draw too much attention to the dish, which he said will not be put on the regular menu. He said he was reluctant at first about serving the meat and wanted to order as little as possible.

Selogie himself has not tried the lion meat yet.

"A beautiful, exotic creature that should be out in the wild is being killed for someone to eat as a burger," Cooper said. "What's next? Dogs? Cats? What's the difference?"

Il Vinaio is at 270 W. Main St. in Mesa.

Walt Whitman

2010-06-14T11:23:00.003-04:00

Whitman walking the deserted beaches of Coney Island, reciting aloud Shakespeare and Homer to the waves.
quits school at 11 (b. 1819 - Long Island)
at 30 becomes a poetry god (although unrecognized by most of his contemporaries and the public). Why such an effortless transformation from newspaper writer to Leaves of Grass? "I just did what I did because I did it -- that's the whole secret."
Poetry is meant to be read aloud, if only for one's self. Whether reading silently or aloud, you must participate. You cannot enter this territory as a tourist. [disfluency on my part - You cannot enter this territory as a terrorist.]
"after you have exhausted what there is in business, politics, conviviality, love, and so on -- have found that none of these finally satisfy, or permanently wear -- what remains? Nature remains."
death in 1892 (Camden, NJ, age 72) his brain is sent to Anthropometric Society in Philadelphia for analysis; after some tests, which showed his brain to be smaller than the average, a lab assistant dropped his brain and the brain was later thrown away.

George Washington, Spymaster: How the Americans Outspied the British and Won the Revolutionary War

2010-06-10T08:41:00.004-04:00

Thomas B. Allen, National Geographic Children's Books (January 1, 2004)

Reading level: Ages 9-12

Washington wanted only "the naked facts without comment or opinion" from his spies.
Anna Smith Strong, used clothes line code for the Culper Spy Ring
NYC plots to murder General Washington
tools used: invisible inks, ciphers (letter substitution), "masks" placed over letters, these unmasked letters were usually replete with false or misleading military information
If Benedict Arnold had died of his wounds that day at Saratoga, he would be remembered today as one of the greatest and bravest American heroes
approximately 5,000 Hessians desert during the war thanks in part to Benjamin Franklin's propaganda efforts ("free land" offers to the Hessians)
the hanging of American aboteur James Aitken in 1777; was a grand public execution; hanging body left on display for months [burtality is relative]
American victory at Saratoga in 1777 did not "convince" the French to join the war [as is too often misunderstood by students today] because France had been covertly aiding the Americans all along. The French real fear of an American-British peace was key to France wanting this war to take place. Silas Dean / Ben Franklin / Beaumarchais and phoney Parisian companies as fronts for money and supply assistance to America long before the victory at Saratoga
if captured in disguise, one could be hanged as a spy; if captured in uniform, you were held as a prisoner of war or even exchanged for other POWs.
experienced spy memorizes; a bad one carries documents; John Andre memorized; Nathan Hale got caught with documents
Washington adopts a plan to kidnap Arnold in British-occupied NY.
"If we do not deceive our own men, we will never decide the enemy." (Washington on how important it was to make even his own men believe that the Continental Army would soon be attacking NY, instead of going after Cornwallis in the South)
"Washington did not really outfight the British, he simply outspied us." --Major George Beckwith

King of Kong Redux

2010-06-09T11:14:00.010-04:00

New York plastic surgeon, Dr. Hank Chien, sets new Donkey Kong record, March, 2010

In July, 2007, during The King of Kong movie release in the United States, Billy Mitchell played live and broke Steve Wiebe's record. Typical Jedi Master move by the master of manipulation, the Right Honorable Bill Mitchell.

Weird Science

2010-06-09T08:33:00.013-04:00

Weird Science was a science fiction anthology comic book that was part of the EC Comics line in the early 1950s. Over a four-year span, the comic ran for 22 issues, ending with the November-December, 1953 issue. Weird Fantasy was a sister title published during the same time frame.

Weird Science-Fantasy was a science fiction anthology comic that was part of the EC Comics line in the early 1950s. Over a 14-month span, the comic ran for seven issues, starting in March 1954 with issue #23 and ending with issue #29 in May/June 1955.

The comic, published by Bill Gaines and edited by Al Feldstein, was a merger of two previous bi-monthly titles, Weird Science and Weird Fantasy, which ran from 1950 to 1953, both ending at issue #22. Because of the losses suffered from those two comics, Gaines and Feldstein combined the two into a single comic, published quarterly and priced at 15 cents. The price would be lowered back down to 10 cents after the first two issues. The comic reverted back to a bi-monthly schedule with issue #27 in January/February 1955. In the summer of 1955, there was yet another title change as Weird Science-Fantasy became Incredible Science Fiction for the final four issues.

Mars Attacks Topps Trading Card (1962)

Matchbox and Hot Wheels - Personal Desiderata

2010-06-02T09:27:00.002-04:00

Google Pac-Man

2010-05-28T09:41:00.002-04:00

Permalink

Roberto

2010-05-28T08:47:00.005-04:00

1973 Topps

1960 Topps

1959 Topps

1956 Topps

1955 Topps

Banksy

2010-05-21T13:52:00.005-04:00

johnny got his gun

2010-05-17T08:26:00.012-04:00

by Dalton Trumbo (1939)

Joe Bonham, American, "injured" in WWI

pp. 114 - 115 "No sir anybody who ent out and got into the front line trenches to fight for liberty was a goddam fool and the guy who got him there was a liar. . . . If there could be a next time and somebody said let's fight for liberty he would say mister my life is important. I'm not a fool and when I swap my life for liberty I've got to know in advance what liberty is and whose idea of liberty we're talking about and just how much of that liberty we're going to have. And what's more mister are you as much interested in this liberty as you want me to be? . . . I like the liberty I've got right here the liberty to walk and see and hear and talk and eat and sleep with my girl. I think I like that liberty better than fighting for a lot of things we won't get and ending up without any liberty at all. . . . Thank you mister. You fight for liberty [and other such words without meaning]. Me I don't care for some."

p. 119 "You can always hear the people who are willing to sacrifice somebody else's life. They're plenty loud and they talk all the time. You can find them in churches and schools and newspapers and legislatures and congresses. That's their business. They sound wonderful. Death before dishonor. This ground sanctified by blood. These men who died so gloriously. They shall not have died in vain. Our noble dead."
"Hmmmm."
"But what do the dead say?"

"Nobody but the dead know whether all these things people talk about are worth dying for or not. And the dead can't talk. So the words about noble deaths and sacred blood and honor and such are all put into dead lips by grave robbers and fakes who have no right to speak for the dead."

p. 121 "So did all those kids die thinking of democracy and freedom and liberty and honor and the safety of the home and the stars and stripes forever?"
"You're goddam right they didn't."
"They died crying in their minds like little babies. They forgot the thing they were fighting for. . . . They thought about things a man can understand. They died yearning for the face of a friend. They died whimpering for the voice of a mother a father a wife a child. . . . They died moaning and sighing for life. They knew what was important. . . . they died with screams and sobs. They died with only one thought in their minds and that was I want to live I want to live I want to live."

p. 192 "God help us he thought god help us all the slaves. For hundreds and thousands of years we have been tapping [morse code with head onto a pillow, and the nurse not listening] we slaves tapping away from the depths of our prisons. All of us all of the little guys all the slaves from the beginning of time tapping tapping tapping---" ["eyeless in gaza, with slaves at the mill."]

after his morse code breakthrough with his new nurse, and after receiving the morse message "WHAT DO YOU WANT", Joe wants to go outside of the hospital, to visit schools, congresses, parliaments, universities, homes, to go on tour, in a glass case, for all the world to see him, to see how his limbless, eyeless, faceless remains represents war, represents "liberty and honor." His request is denied. He is to remain a prisoner, within the hospital, within his own body. For if the world could see the horror of war as manifested in his body, then perhaps war and the war machine would not prosper.

last four pages are wonderful. amazing ending. [It is from these ending words that Zinn quotes and to which he directs his readers]

"And then suddenly he saw. He had a vision of himself as a new kind of Christ as a man who carries within himself all the seeds of a new order of things. He was the new messiah of the battlefields saying to people as I am so shall you be. For he had seen the future he had tasted it and now he was living it. He had seen the airplanes flying in the sky he had seen the skies of the future filled with them black with them and now he saw the horror beneath. He saw a world of lovers forever parted of dreams never consummated of plans that never turned into reality. He saw a world of dead fathers and crippled brothers and crazy screaming sons. He saw a world of armless mothers clasping headless babies to their breasts trying to scream out their grief from throats that were cancerous with gas. He saw starved cities black and cold and motionless and the only things in this whole dead terrible world that made a move or a sound were the airplanes that blackened the sky and far off against the horizon the thunder of the big guns and the puffs that rose from barren tortured earth when their shells exploded. "
"That was it he had it he understood it now he had told them his secret and in denying him they had told him theirs."
"He was the future he was a perfect picture of the future and they were afraid to let anyone see what the future was like. Already they were looking ahead they were figuring the future and somewhere in the future they saw war. To fight that war they would need men and if men saw the future they wouldn't fight. So they were masking the future they were keeping the future a soft quiet deadly secret. They knew that if all the little people all the little guys saw the future they would begin to ask questions. They would ask questions and they would find answers and they would say to the guys who wanted them to fight they would say you lying thieving sons-of-bitches we won't fight we won't be dead we will live we are the world we are the future and we will not let you butcher us no matter what you say no matter what speeches you make no matter what slogans you write. Remember it well we we we are the world we are what makes it go round we make bread and cloth and guns we are the hub of the wheel and the spokes and the wheel itself without us you would be hungry naked worms and we will not die. We are immortal we are the sources of life we are the lowly despicable ugly people we are the great wonderful beautiful people of the world and we are sick of it we are utterly weary we are done with it forever and ever because we are the living and we will not be destroyed."
"If you make a war if there are guns to be aimed if there are bullets to be fired if there are men to be killed they will not be us. They will not be us the guys who grow wheat and turn it into food the guys who make clothes and paper and houses and tiles the guys who build dams and power plants and string the long moaning high tension wires the guys who crack crude oil down into a dozen different parts who make light globes and sewing machines and shovels and automobiles and airplanes and tanks and guns oh no it will not be us who die. It will be you."
"It will be you-you who urge us on to battle you who incite us against ourselves you who would have one cobbler kill another cobbler you who would have one man who works kill another man who works you who would have one human being who wants only to live kill another human being who wants only to live. Remember this. Remember this well you people who plan for war. Remember this you patriots you fierce ones you spawners of hate you inventors of slogans. Remember this as you have never remembered anything else in your lives."
"We are men of peace we are men who work and we want no quarrel. But if you destroy our peace if you take away our work if you try to range us one against the other we will know what to do. If you tell us to make the world safe for democracy we will take you seriously and by god and by Christ we will make it so. We will use the guns you force upon us we will use them to defend our very lives and the menace to our lives does not lie on the other side of a nomansland that was set apart without our consent it lies within our own boundaries here and now we have seen it and we know it."
Put the guns into our hands and we will use them. Give us the slogans and we will turn them into realities. Sing the battle hymns and we will take them up where you left off. Not one not ten not ten thousand not a million not ten millions not a hundred millions but a billion two billions of us all the people of the world we will have the slogans and we will have the hymns and we will have the guns and we will use them and we will live. Make no mistake of it we will live. We will be alive and we will walk and talk and eat and sing and laugh and feel and love and bear our children in tranquillity in security in decency in peace. You plan the wars you masters of men plan the wars and point the way and we will point the gun."

From the Earth to the Moon

2010-05-11T12:35:00.005-04:00

De la terre a la lune, by Jules Verne (1865)

[author's comments on on artillerymen (americans and the civil war)] "The respect they get is proportional to the mass of their cannons and in direct ratio to the square of the distances reached by their projectiles."

each member of the Gun Club, it was figured, had killed 2,375 with their cannons and projectiles. "From this figure it is clear that the aims of that learned society were the destruction of the human race for philanthropical reasons and the improvement of war weapons, regarded as instruments of civilization. It was an assemblage of Angels of Death who at the same time were thoroughly decent men."

"One day, however, one sad day, the survivors of the war made peace." (and the Gun Club was plunged into idle boredom)

(Impey Barbicane, president of the Gun Club) "I do not hesitate to say openly that any war which would bring our weapons back to us would be welcome."

(Michel Ardan, Frenchman, leonine, cocksman, daredevil, moon traveler) "Distance is only a relative term, and it will eventually be reduced to zero." (Why travelling to the moon is not all that unfathomable and perposterous, the moon, in relation to the cosmos, is so close to the Earth that the Eart and moon are actually one and the same with no distance between them)

"All right, suppose we say all those difficulties are resolved, all those obstacles are overcome; suppose we put all the chances in yor favor and say you arrive safe and sound on the moon. How ill you get back?"

[the projectile, shot from an enormous cannon in Florida, with its three human passengers, does indeed leave the Earth, but the projectile never lands on the moon; it gets caught in an elliptical orbit around the moon, with no end to this orbit forseeable; the passengers have enough food, water and air for only a few months. Verne ends the story with the optimistic assertion that the passengers are all clever men of science and will figure something out.]

Risk (Parker Brothers / Hasbro)

2010-05-04T10:38:00.003-04:00

As the geography of a land changes, so does the lives of the people who live on that land.

2010-04-23T13:06:00.012-04:00

Many active volcanoes on the western coast of Central America and across Mexico. (Trans-Mexican Volcanic Belt)

El Chichón, also known as El Chichonal, (roughly translated in english as "The bump") is an active volcano in northwestern Chiapas, Mexico. Its only recorded eruptive activity was on March 29, April 3 and April 4, 1982, when it produced a one km-wide caldera that then filled with an acidic crater lake. The eruption killed around 2,000 people who lived near the volcano.
The Cerro Negro (Black Hill) volcano, near Leon, Nicaragua: Although the Cerro Negro volcano has only been around for a period of 159 years, it has erupted at least 23 times, which is highly active compared to most volcanoes.
Santa María Volcano is a large active volcano in the Western Highlands of Guatemala. Its eruption in 1902 was one of the four largest eruptions of the 20th century (6,000+ deaths; related earthquakes kill thousands more). Dangers in the region also include deadly lahars: a lahar is a type of mudflow or landslide composed of pyroclastic material and water that flows down from a volcano, typically along a river valley.

A deadly lahar: fast-moving water-mud flows

Deadly earthquakes: (volcanoes and earthquakes are interrelated! Where there is lava, there are tremors.) Earthquakes can destroy villages, farmland, ecosystems, even if it does not kill the human inhabitants.
Guatemala earthquake in 1976 kills 23,000. Guatemala lies in a major fault zone.
1991 quake in Costa Rica, 120+ deaths. 1910 quake there kills 700+.
Mexico City earthquake in 1985 kills 10,000+. An 8.1-magnitude earthquake, one of the strongest to ever hit the area. The effects of the quake were particularly devastating because of the type of ground upon which the city sits. Mexico City is on a plateau surrounded by mountains and volcanoes. The plateau region was covered by lakes in ancient times. As the aquifer under the city has slowly drained, it has been discovered that the city sits atop a combination of dirt and sand that is much less stable than bedrock and can be quite volatile during an earthquake. The quake on September 19 was centered 250 miles west of the city but, due to the relatively unstable ground underneath the city, serious shaking lasted for nearly 3 minutes.
Nicaragua quake (Managua) in 1972 kills 5,000+.
Deadly hurricanes.
Hurricane Mitch in October 1998, Category 5, 11,000 - 18,000 + killed in Honduras and surrounding C.A. countries, mainly due to mudslides. Millions left homeless.
Hurricane Fifi / Orlene, kills 8,000 - 10,000 in Honduras in 1974.
Hurricane Hattie hits C.A. in 1961 causing millions of dollars in damage to the area; 300+ killed.
Belize Hurricane in 1931 kills 2,500+.
Hurricane Stan hits Mexico and C.A. in 2005, nearly 2,000 deaths (majority in Guatemala), with most deaths coming from mudslides.

The Grapes of Wrath

2010-04-12T13:37:00.005-04:00

"When a majority of the people are hungry and cold, they will take by force what they need." [is it stealing when a person takes what does not belong to him in order to feed his family, and hurts no person in the process.]

"the little screaming fact that sounds through all history: repression works only to strengthen and knit the repressed."

Aztec

2010-03-31T14:16:00.031-04:00

The extent of the Aztec Empire in Central Mexico at the time
of Spanish contact and Hernan Cortes

What a chinampa may have looked like in a canal near the city of Tenochtitlan

The Aztec Sun Stone most certainly had been covered with wonderful colors by the Aztec. Can you imagine what the Sun Stone would look like with color? The beauty, the power, the message. (often mistaken for a calendar, most archaeologists today believe this was used for gladiatorial sacrifices)

Aztec Eagle-Warrior statue - warriors dressed in costumes for ceremonies and for battles with the "enemy."

What an Aztec Temple gathering may have looked like.

The Mexica people wander their original homeland looking for a place to establish a new home. Their myths and cultural legends told them to look for the sign of an eagle eating a snake while perched on a cactus. It would be here that their empire would begin and floursih. They saw this very sign on an island in Lake Texcoco, and it was here that the Mexica settle and would later become the mighty Aztec.
The Aztec revered the Toltec and regarded them as their ancestors. The Toltecs too had settled in the Valley of Mexico from about 900 - 1150.
The rapid growth and success of the capital city of Tenochtitlan made conquest a necessity. The empire needed more workers, more food, more things to consume.
The archaeological discoveries made in Mexico in 1790 sparked new interest (national pride) in Aztec history. (While building a canal in Mexico City - Stone of the Sun was found)
after Mexico is an independent nation (1821), the Museo Nacional de Antropologia is established, where today many artifacts are presereved for the public as national treasures.
Through warfare, the Aztecs sought to capture their enemies (not necessarily KILL their enemies). With captured prisoners could work for the empire or could be kept alive until sacrifice. The univers (their universe) was fragile. The only way to keep the universe in balance, was to please the war god with blood. (The Maya shared similary blood sacrifice religious customs, sometimes just as brutal as the Aztec) The Aztec performed sacrificial rituals on a scale larger than any of the other civilizations. (20,000 a year!!) And what about the DOCUMENTED reports of cannabilism (that we can read from the Spanish chroniclers / historians who traveled with Cortes)
Crops most significant to the Aztec: corn (maize)!! then beans (protein), and both complimented each other as far as daily nutrients. Other vegetables farmed by the Aztec (and later passed to the rest of the world!!) were tomatoes, avocados, onions, squash, chili peppers.
terracing farming! wonderful and important engineering / agricultural development that is necessary for empire and population growth. The mouths you can feed, the more and faster a city will grow. The more food you can grow, the more free time some people in a city will have which could allow them to sit inside and think and ponder about art, music, law, medicine, science, math, etc.
chinampa farming was also key - "floating islands"; these were most productive in farming towns such as Xochimilco, Chalco, and Cuitlahuac.
Oaxaca (wah-HA-ka)
Nahuatl words from which we get our modern-day words: tomato (tomatl), avocado (ahuacatl), and chocolate (choclatl).
important god is Huitzilopochtli (hweet-see-lo-POHCH-tlee), sun god, war god, guardian of Tenochtitlan.
re: the fall of the Aztec due to internal conflict: H.G. Wells, "Our present civilization, it seems, is quite capable of falling to pieces without any aide from the Martians."

Links:

LatinAmericanStudies.org Info (lots of pictures here!)

Good map showing Maya and Aztec regions of influence in Mexico and Central America (with clickable supporting information on the Olmec-Toltec, the Aztec, and the Maya.)

A good Think Quest link

October 12 in Mexico is celebrated El Dia de la Raza. See also the 2010 census video regarding Latino-Chicano-Hispanic-Indigenous classification. Respecting other people means letting each person decide how to identify himself or herself.

A quote to think about, not just for the Aztec, Maya, Inca and other Meso-cultures, but for all cultures: As geography changes, so do the lives of the people.

What does a terrorist look like?

2010-03-30T19:07:00.010-04:00

First things first, define terorrism, in its basic and simplest terms. Then proceed on to determining who a terrorist is.

Leaving aside state-sponsored terror (e.g. what is any military intervention, what is any "Operation: Such and Such"), let's begin our list with every Ku Klux Klan act of violence, and every lynch mob, old and new. Every church bombing. A terrorist is properly defined by the terror felt by those who are the victims. Those who observe both the vixtim and the victimizer from the outside should be in no position to state definitively what is and is not terrorism.

Hutaree is a right-wing Christian militia based in Adrian, Michigan, and formed in winter or spring of 2008. The name "Hutaree" seems to be a made-up word that according to the group's website means "Christian soldiers." The members say they are preparing for battle with the Anti-Christ (also known as Dajjal).

From March 28 to March 30, 2010, nine people thought to be Hutaree members were arrested for allegedly selling pipe bombs in Michigan, Ohio, and Indiana (in Hammond). The group is one of 127 that the Southern Poverty Law Center classifies as 'active extremist militias' in the United States in 2009.

Timothy McVeigh - Oklahoma City Bombing, April 19, 1995

addendum, January 8, 2011 - Jared Lee Loughner, 22-year old, shoots and kills 6, during assassination attempt on Democrat Representative Gabrielle Giffords.

UPDATE: July, 2011

Norway bombing / shooting, nearly 100 dead. And the shooter? Blond haired, blue eyed "terrorist".

4 'Mericans arrested for ricin plots against other Americans. November 2, 2011

George Metesky - The Mad Bomber, and fellow Nutmegger (Not tried: declared legally insane and incompetent to stand trial)

Teaching Tolerance Lesson: Debunking Stereotypes About Muslims and Islam

Level: Grades 6 to 8, Grades 9 to 12
Subject: Reading and Language Arts, Social Studies [ELL / ESL]

This activity will help students identify similarities and differences between the U.S. Muslim population and the entire U.S. population. It will also help dispel common stereotypes about Islam.

Framework

Many religions have things in common. At the same time, each is unique. In the shared category, Islam, like Christianity and Judaism, descends from the first five books of the Bible. That’s why some people refer to members of all three religions as “followers of the Book.” Some people also call the three religions “Abrahamic” because they all descended from Abraham. In the unique category, Jews were the first to believe that there was one God; Muslims believe that Muhammad was God’s messenger and Christians believe that Jesus Christ was the Messiah.

In the same way that religions are both alike and unique, so, too are the members of those religions. In this activity, students learn more about Muslims in the United States and practice graph-reading skills.

Resources

Other Teaching Tolerance Activities address religious tolerance. See:

The First Amendment and Freedom of Religion

Understanding Other Religious Beliefs

Taking a Closer Look at Religions Around the World

Teaching Tolerance blog postings address how to teach religious tolerance. See:

How Do You Bring Islam Into the Classroom?

Commemorate 9/11 By Confronting Islamophobia

For information and educational materials about Islam, as well as a speakers’ bureau, visit the Islamic Networks Group.

Objectives

Activities will help students:

•Read and interpret charts and graphs
•Recognize differences within the U.S. Muslim population
•Identify similarities and differences between the U.S. Muslim population and the entire U.S. population

Essential Questions

•What are some common stereotypes about Islam? How can we dispel them?
•How does learning about differences within a group help to dispel stereotypes?
•How does learning about similarities among groups help to dispel stereotypes?
Materials

•Debunking Misconceptions About Muslims and Islam (PDF)
•Graph 1: U.S. Muslims’ Beliefs (PDF)
•Graph 2: Religious Commitment Among U.S. Muslims (PDF)
•U.S. Muslims and the Larger U.S. Population (PDF)
Part 1: Stereotypes

Background

Before you can debunk stereotypes, you need to be clear about what they are. In this section, you will define the term, identify some stereotypes and discuss what makes stereotypes harmful.

Activities

1. Begin your work by discussing stereotypes. As a class, define the term. Then identify some stereotypes that you sometimes experience because you are a student. For example, do people sometimes make assumptions about you based on your age or on the school you attend? What is wrong about those assumptions? Generalize from your discussion by answering the question: What makes stereotypes destructive?

2. Divide the class into small groups to explore Debunking Misconceptions About Muslims and Islam. Have a group member read aloud the first misconception. Have each group member take a turn answering these questions: Have you heard this stereotype before? Did you believe it? Then have the same group member read the explanation on the handout of what makes the misconception inaccurate. Consider the other stereotypes one at a time, following the same procedure. When your group has debunked all four stereotypes, formulate a group statement that completes this prompt: In this activity about stereotypes, we learned ___________. Have each group share its statement.

Part 2: Beliefs

Background

One way to dispel stereotypes is to understand that there are variations within any group. You may, for example, know about differences within some religions. In Christianity, some Catholic practices differ from some Protestant practices, for example. Some Orthodox Jewish practices differ from some Reform Jewish practices. The same is true of Muslims. Within the American Muslim community—about 2.5 million people—there are subgroups defined by their different approaches to their faith. Sunni Muslims, for example, believe that the first four caliphs, or leaders, of the religion are Muhammad’s successors. The majority of the world’s Muslims are Sunni. Shiites, on the other hand, reject the first three caliphs and believe that Ali was Muhammad’s successor.

Activities

1. The two graphs you will study in this activity provide information about differences of belief and religious commitment within the U.S. Muslim population. Both are based on data published in 2007. Look at Graph 1: U.S. Muslims’ Beliefs and answer the questions that follow.

2. Look at Graph 2: Religious Commitment Among U.S. Muslims and answer the questions.

3. When you have finished working with both graphs, write one or two sentences about what you have learned from them and how knowing that information affects any stereotypes you had about Islam and U.S. Muslims.

Part 3: The U.S. Muslim Population

Background

Just as there are similarities and differences within the U.S. Muslim population, there are similarities and differences between the U.S. Muslim population and the U.S. population as a whole. Just as learning about the differences within the Muslim population can help dispel stereotypes, learning about the similarities and differences between Muslim Americans and the general U.S. population can help dispel stereotypes.

Activities

1. The table U.S. Muslims and the Larger U.S. Population provides data that compare the two groups. Look at the table and answer the questions that follow.

2. When you have finished working with the table, discuss as a class what you now know about U.S. Muslims that you didn’t know before, and how knowing that information affects stereotypes you had about Islam and U.S. Muslims.

Extension Activities

1. Look for more recent data about U.S. Muslims and compare the newer data with the 2007 data you used in these activities.

2. Compare and contrast the data you have used in this lesson with data from a 2009 Gallup Poll study, “Muslim Americans: A National Portrait.” Pay particular attention to the different methodologies used by Gallup and by Pew researchers. How do different methods and different ways of organizing data affect your understanding?

Standards

Activities and embedded assessments address the following standards (McREL 4th edition)

Civics

Standard 11. Understands the role of diversity in American life and the importance of shared values, political beliefs, and civic beliefs in an increasingly diverse American society

Standard 14. Understands issues concerning the disparities between ideals and reality in American political and social life

Geography

Standard 10. Understands the nature and complexity of Earth's cultural mosaics

U.S. History

Standard 31. Understands economic, social, and cultural developments in the contemporary United States

Thinking and Reasoning

Standard 3.Effectively uses mental processes that are based on identifying similarities and differences

Related activities:

Combating Anti-Muslim Bias

Racial Profiling

Las Bolas: The Spheres of Costa Rica

2010-03-29T21:04:00.002-04:00

Wiki Info
push for UN World Heritage Status, March, 2010

"A Voice Is Heard in Ramah" (Saudi woman criticizes Muslim clerics' in a TV poetry contest)

2010-03-28T10:30:00.002-04:00

Protesting in verse: A Saudi woman criticizes Muslim clerics' in a TV poetry contest (March, 2010)

Hernan Cortes

2010-03-23T12:14:00.010-04:00

Hernán Cortés

Cortes had no authority to establish Villa Rica, much less to journey to the great Aztec capital. He had been sent by the governor of newly-conquered Cuba, also called Fernandina, to reconnoiter the mainland coast. But in Cortes' zeal he began, almost at once, to exceed his contractual instructions, resulting in a large battle with the Maya in Tabasco and widespread discontent among Spanish troops loyal to the Cuban governor.
the Totonacs were discontented subjects of the Aztec; their city of Cempoala had an estimated population of 80,000, larger than any Spanish city at that time!
The Totonac poured out their grievances against the harsh Aztec and Moctezuma to Cortes
Cortes resigns his Cuban commission and makes himself captain general of Villa Rica de la Vera Cruz; Was this a legal maneuver on Cortes' part?? No. So Cortes sent a ship with an explanation, and tons of gold and riches, to Charles V in Spain.
As another indication that Cortes' actions were illegal, he scuttled all of his remaining ships to quell any lingering opposition by his troops still loyal to Cuba and governor Velasquez.
Mount Orizaba, third highest peak in North America. (18,855 feet)
Some living along Cortes' historic route inland still speak Mexicano, a surviving dialect of Nahuatl. But for fear of ridicule from others, many do not speak it publicly.
Malinche (Cortes' interpreter and wife) has no monuments to her in Mexico (other than a mountain peak in her name). She is considered a traitor by many in Mexico.
At the Temples in Cholula, many (locals) were sacrificed by the Aztec rulers, It was at Cholula, where Cortes, fearing a trap, killed some 3,000 indigenous warriors who had gathered in this city.
On November 8, 1519 (my birthday!!) Cortes formally enters the Aztec capital city Tenochtitlan.
Cortes died in Spain in 1547, but was buried in the Hospital de Jesus Nazareno, near the meeting spot between Cortes and Moctezuma, in Mexico City. [Not any hospital, this one known as the Hospital of Jesus of Nazareth is one of the few places in Mexico to have a statue of Hernan Cortes, the Spaniard in charge of the army that conquered Mexico in the 16th century. He was largely responsible for the hospital being built here to help the recuperation of soldiers injured in battle. The building dating from 1524 is the oldest hospital in Central and North America. The remains of Cortes are buried within the hospital, hidden from view and largely forgotten by the people of Mexico. The hospital is also home to one of over 10,000 murals located across the city, telling the history of the country.]
Francisco Fernandez de Cordoba was the first Spanish explorer who tried to establish a presence in the Yucatan, but was met by massive indigenous resistance. His expedition barely makes it back to Cuba, Cordoba himself was wounded by a poison arrow and died soon after.
Velasquez, then governor of Cuba, gives clear instructions to Cortes regarding his mission to the Yucatan.
The Yucatan indigenous saw Cortes and his horsemen as supernatural beings, and were very scared, scared enough into passivity and conversion to Catholicism. (especially the Tabascans). And gold and other gifts were showered upon the Spaniards.
Cortes interpreter, and quasi-wife, was Malinche (Dona Marina), who spoke Mayan languages and Nahuatl (Aztec language).
After setting up Vera Cruz (illegally), Cortes took steps to protect himself against actions from Velasquez in Cuba; Cortes sent news back to Spain, loaded with gold and riches, to the king explaining his actions. And because many of his men were still faithful to Velasquez, Cortes burned his remaining ships to fend off mutiny.
Aztec chief deity was Huitzilopochtli, a war god who fed on fresh human hearts / blood.
Aztec legend held that another god, Quetzacoatl ("feathered snake"), had introduced agriculture and writing to their people, but he had been driven away. Sailing to the east on a raft of snakes, he had promised to return and destroy the fierce death-god Huitzilopochtli. Many saw / mistook Cortes for Quetzacoatl, a god returned to Tenochtitlan to defeat and remove Huitzilopochtli.
Like the Cempoalans and Tabascans, the Tlascalans were almost slavish in their newfound devotion to the Spanish. They were even more bitter about Aztec domination than the other tribes Cortes had met. They saw Cortes as a savior.
Estimates at the Aztec population in Tenochtitlan range from 90,000 to 1 million. At this time (1519) London had 40,000 and Paris 65,000.
chinampas - man-made small islands, floating gardens, on which the Aztec grew flowers / food.
Incredible Aztec engineering feat, besides their massive stone buildings, was their fresh water aquaducts; their government was well-organized and complex, their artwork superlative, and their calendar was more accurate than any in Europe at the time.
Ritual human sacrifice and even cannibalism, including some Maya groups, shocked Cortes and the Spanish. While within Tenochtitlan, Cortes became disgusted by the human blood on statues and idols, he smashed the face of an idol. Relations between the Aztec and the Spanish decline rapidly. Once Cortes hears that Aztec have attacked his forces back in Veracruz.
Cortes and his men decide to grab and restrain Moctezuma II as their hostage. But Cortes and his men were themselves captives within the city. Moctezuma as hostage was their bargaining chip.
While trying to save their own necks inside Tenochtitlan, Cortes finds out that Spanish ships had arrived in Veracruz, NOT to give him aid and support, but to arrest him for defying his orders from Velasquez.
Cortes leaves Tenochtitlan, leaving Alvarado in charge, and sets out to meet Velasquez' men (being led by Narvaez). Cortes' forces now are about 70 men and five horses. Cortes leads night attack on Narvaez near Cempoala and captures narvaez. The bulk of Narvaez' men now join forces with Cortes and head back to Tenochtitlan.
Back in Tenochtitlan, Cortes returns to the news that Alvarado has ruthlessly killed hundreds of Aztec nobles. The city was in revolt against the Spanish. On June 25, 1520, the Aztecs attack the Spanish in Tenochtitlan.
Moctezuma emerges to calm the attacking Aztec forces, but he is pelted with stones. (The Aztec no longer fear the Spanish as gods.) Three days later Moctezuma dies from these injuries, killed by his own people.
With his bargaining chip now dead, Cortes plans to escape the city at night. On June 30, noche triste, Cortes and the Spanish abandon Tenochtitlan, and lose many lives and most of their gold in the process.
How Christian were these Conquistadors? How Christian are crusaders? How pious?
Cortes soon amasses large native forces, who saw the Spanish as liberators who could free them from Aztec oppression. Allies from Tlascala, Cholula, and Texcoco soon bolstered the small Spanish forces. Was it Cortes (guns, germs and steel) that conquered the massive Aztec armies, or was it Aztec oppression and native armies (civil war) that conquered the Aztec?
With Tenochtitlan besieged by Spanish and native forces, hunger, thirst and smallpox soon take their toll on the Aztec.
When Tenochtitlan falls to Cortes, he wastes little time in demolishing every structure in the city.

Mexico City Metropolitan Cathedral
(built atop Aztec temple ruins)

The human death toll for the fall of Tenochtitlan: 50,000 starved to death, 250,000 killed in battle.
Had the Aztec Empire ever been a true empire? Was it rather a loose confederation of independent tribal states, held together by the military dominance and fear of the Aztec imperialists?
October 15, 1522, Charles I, King of Spain, decalres Cortes governor of New Spain.
Cortes kills Cuauhtemoc, Aztec puppet ruler who had replaced Moctezuma. Cortes wanted to remove all possible threats since he was now governor of New Spain. However, Cuauhtemoc was seen and is still seen as a hero to the Mexicans. Cortes is seen as a national villaing.

Statue of Cuauhtémoc on Avenida Reforma in Mexico City.

The inscription at the bottom of the statue translates as

"In memory of Cuauhtémoc (spelled Quautemoc) and his warriors

who battled heroically in defense of their country."

However, Cortes rise in power and prestige make him a threat to others, and this title is soon stripped from him. He returns to Spain to plead his case; the King names him Marques of the Valley of Oaxaca, a still very profitable position, but a demotion all the same.
There is a catholic cathedral built atop the ruins of the great pyramid of the Aztec sun god. By destroying and even building over and covering up, the Spanish were performing very powerful psychological warfare on the indigenous as well.

UN: Polluted water killing, sickening millions

2010-03-22T14:15:00.001-04:00

Water kills more than war kills (Associated Press, March, 2010)

Latin America

2010-03-22T11:56:00.004-04:00

Columbus goes ashore (probably the Bahamas, October, 1492), kneels and kisses shore and claims the land "por Castilla y por Leon (Castile and Leon represented the separate Spanish kingdoms of Isabella and Ferdinand. Spain did not exist as a unified nation until 1516)
When Columbus dies (1506, in Spain) he still believed that he had found a westward route to the Orient.
Several sites claim to hold the remains of Columbus; Seville Cathedral, Columbus Lighthouse in the Domincan Republic, and Havana, Cuba.
In 1493, Diego Velasquez de Cuellar sails with Columbus to Hispaniola. He was one of the first conquistadors to arrive in the islands. In 1511 Velasques conquers and colonizes Cuba.
In 1517, Velasquez sent Francisco Fernandez de Cordoba to explore the mainland of what is now Mexico.
Velasquez soon after seens Hernan Cortes to the mainland (search for gold, profits)
On his way to Tenochtitlan, Cortes enlisted the aid of thousands of indigenous from the mainland who had by this time resented the imperialistic rule of the Aztec.
On the ruins of Tenochtitlan, Cortes built Mexico City.
Treaty of Tordesillas of 1494
(with the decline of Spanish imperial control of the area), the English, Dutch and French and strong footholds in Guiana / Guyana. The Treaty of Breda in 1667 resolves some of the difficulties. The treaty wards Dutch Guiana to the Dutch and Nieuw Amsterdam (New York) to the English. Meanwhile, in 1624, the French had setup a trading post to the east of Dutch Guiana and founded the town of Cayenne in 1642. The Treaty of Breda also awarded this French Guiana region to France.
British Guiana colony abolishes slavery in 1834. French Guiana (1848) and Dutch Guiana (1863) follow. Most of the freed slaves refused to return to plantation work. As a result, plantation owners brought in replacements from India, China, and Southeast Asia, resulting in the highly mixed racial makeup of the region today.
Bauxite (aluminum) is discovered in 1917 in Guiana region.
British Guyana becomes independent new nation of Guyana in 1966; Dutch Guiana achived independence in 1975 and is now Suriname. British, Dutch and French Guianas represent the only non-Spanish/Portueguese speaking countries in South America.
Balboa in 1513 wades into the water and claims the ocean and all lands that touched it for Spain.
Due to his growing prestige and influence in the isthmus area, Balboa is arrested by the Spanish governor, charged with treason, falsely convicted and beheaded.
By the time of Pizarro's arrival in the Inca Empire of northwestern South America (Peru - Biru), the Empire has been ravaged by years of civil war between the brothers Atahualpa and Huascar.
Pizzaro is murdered in Lima, July 26, 1541, by a son of Diego de Almagro, with whom Pizarro had gone to civil war against a few years earlier, just after establishing Lima as his capital city in Peru. Pizarro had crushed Almagro's uprising and had him beheaded.
Venezuela "Little Venice", Spanish navigator Alonso de Ojeda so-called when he saw local fishermen had built their houses over the water on stilts near the mouth of the Orinoco River.
Venezuela became the first Southa American country to revolt against Spanish rule, July 5, 1811.
Spanish troops crushthe Venezuelan rebels in 1812, the revolutionary leader Francisco de Miranda is captured and imprisoned in Cadiz.

1607: A New Look at Jamestown

2010-03-11T12:12:00.008-05:00

by Karen E. Lange (Nat Geo, 2007)

p. 8 The 104 colonists sailing up the James River knew that if the king of Spain learned about their settlement, he might send his navy to destroy it and them. [Spain already had a settlment in Florida and had claimed land up the east coast of the present-day United States all the way to Virginia. Also, a small group of Spanish settlers had already tried to settle in an area near Jamestown in 1570 but had failed.]

p. 15 "To the southeast of Powhatan's territory lived a tribe called the Chesapeake that had refused to join Powhatan's empire (an Algonquin tribe). Powhatan sent his warriors to wipe out the Chesapeake. He ordered everyone slaughtered. Then he moved a tribe that was loyal to him onto the Chesapeake's land." [Europeans were not always the bad guys when it came to indigenous "removal."]

p. 19 Feudalism in England / Europe in the 1600s was breaking down. People forced off their land by property owners found the prospects of starting anew in America less bleak than the status quo back in England. The poor could at least remain on their land in a lord-vassal relationship. But with feudalism's demise, if you were too poor to buy or lease land from a landlord, your options were few. And as England population rised, and available property snatched up by wealthy landowners, there were few places people, not just the poor, could go to. Many of the Jamestown settlers were poor, indentured servants.

p. 22 Captain John Smith, a Jamestown leader, was not a gentleman of high rank. He often complained that were too many gentlemen at Jamestown and not enough skilled craftsmen and workers. (notwithstanding the many indentured servants already at Jamestown)

p. 31 The "starving time" or "dying time" in the winter of 1609 - 1610 (but really throughout most of the early decades of the colony's existence); malnourished, weak from disease (dysentery from poor sanitation, typhoid fever), isolated, poor location, poor timing (drought, crop failures), and penned in by Indians, it is a miracle that ANYONE survived. The settlers en mass are set to abandon the colony but for the arrival of a new leader with new supplies; Lord de la Warr.

p. 32 scientists today know of the Jamestwon-area drought because of tree rings. Fortunately very old cypress trees still stand near the remains of the fort. Core samples were taken and tree rings examined. The narrower the distance between yearly rings shows very slow growth due to draught conditions that occured during those years.

p. 35 indigenous tobacco burned the throat when smoked. John Rolfe imports a milder sweeter tasting tobacco (from Trinidad) in 1611 and the tobacco cash crop industry begins. The Jamestown colony begins to be profitable.

p. 37 House of Burgesses and representtive colonial government in 1619

p. 39 March 22, 1622, Indians attack and kill 347 settlers throughout the plantations and colony; Jamestwon is spared thanks to a warning from an Indian friendly to the colonists there.

p. 41 Virginia Company and English soldiery reprisals against the Powhatan in 1623; one last big Indian attack in 1644, killing 400 - 500 settlers. But this was the last big Indian push back. By now, the English settlers had taken most Powhatan land, and in 1677, the Powhatan sign a peace treaty that gives them reservation lands in return for annual payments to Virginia's government (the tribute payments take place to this day! After much post-civil rights era fighting, Virginia's Indians get state recognition as tribes. The yearly tribute payments to the Governor remind the state, the nation, and perhaps the world, that the indigenous Virginians are still here.) [also, in 1624 King James I revokes Virginia Company of London's charter; crown assumes direct control of Jamestown and other Virginia settlements]

p. 43 Why celebrate the 400th anniversary of Jamestwon? "For the indians, Jamestown is nothing to celebrate."

p. 43 Plymouth Plantation was settled 13 years AFTER Jamestwon; in 1619, two years before the meal at Plymouth, settlers at Berkeley plantation on the James River held a similar feast to thank God for their safe arrival.

p.44 The true and real story of Jamestwon is one of suffering, of cruelty, and of unecessary death. More then 2/3 of those who went to Jamestown in 1607 - 1625 were dead before the end of this period. These settlers fought the first of many wars that would drive native peoples off their land. These settlers started the first plantations that would eventually bring slavery to the South.

Additional websites:

The World's Billionaires ("The few have so much, the many . . . nothing at all")

2010-03-11T08:50:00.011-05:00

(from Forbes.com, March, 2010)

Carlos Slim Helu takes No. 1 spot on Forbes World's Billionaires list as a record 164 10-figure titans return to the ranking amid the global economic recovery.

For the third time in three years, the world has a new richest man.

Riding surging prices of his various telecom holdings, including giant mobile outfit America Movil (AMX), Mexican tycoon Carlos Slim Helu has beaten out Americans Bill Gates and Warren Buffett to become the wealthiest person on earth and nab the top spot on the 2010 Forbes list of the World's Billionaires.

Slim's fortune has swelled to an estimated $53.5 billion, up $18.5 billion in 12 months. Shares of America Movil, of which Slim owns a $23 billion stake, were up 35% in a year.

That massive hoard of scratch puts him ahead of Microsoft (MSFT) cofounder Bill Gates, who had held the title of world's richest 14 of the past 15 years.

Gates, now worth $53 billion, is ranked second in the world. He is up $13 billion from a year ago as shares of Microsoft rose 50% in 12 months. Gates' holdings in his personal investment vehicle Cascade (CAE) also soared with the rest of the markets.

Buffett's fortune jumped $10 billion to $47 billion on rising shares of Berkshire Hathaway (BRK). He ranks third.

The Oracle of Omaha shrewdly invested $5 billion in Goldman Sachs (GS) and $3 billion in General Electric (GE) amid the 2008 market collapse. He also recently acquired railroad giant Burlington Northern Santa Fe (BNI) for $26 billion.

In his annual shareholder letter Buffett wrote, "We've put a lot of money to work during the chaos of the last two years. When it's raining gold, reach for a bucket, not a thimble."

Many plutocrats did just that. Indeed, last year's wealth wasteland has become a billionaire bonanza. Most of the richest people on the planet have seen their fortunes soar in the past year.

This year the World's Billionaires have an average net worth of $3.5 billion, up $500 million in 12 months. The world has 1,011 10-figure titans, up from 793 a year ago but still shy of the record 1,125 in 2008. Of those billionaires on last year's list, only 12% saw their fortunes decline.

U.S. billionaires still dominate the ranks — but their grip is slipping. Americans account for 40% of the world's billionaires, down from 45% a year ago.

The U.S. commands 38% of the collective $3.6 trillion net worth of the world's richest, down from 44% a year ago.

Of the 97 new members of the list, only 16% are from the U.S. By contrast, Asia made big gains. The region added 104 moguls and now has just 14 fewer than Europe, thanks to several large public offerings and swelling stock markets.

The new billionaires include American Isaac Perlmutter, who flipped Marvel Entertainment (MVL) to Disney (DIS) for $4 billion last December. The Spider-Man mogul netted nearly $900 million in cash and 20 million shares of Disney in the transaction.

Also new to the ranking: 27 billionaires from China, including Li Shufu, whose automaker, Geely, announced plans to buy Swedish brand Volvo from Ford in December. The deal is expected to close in March 2010.

Finland and Pakistan both welcomed their first billionaires.

For the first time China (including Hong Kong) has the most billionaires outside the U.S. with 89.

Russia has 62 billionaires, 28 of them returnees who had fallen off last year's list amid a meltdown in commodities. Total returnees to the list this year: 164.

Eleven countries have at least double the number of billionaires they had a year ago, including China, India, Turkey and South Korea.

Thirty members of last year's list fell out of the billionaire's club. Moguls who couldn't make the cut: Iceland's Thor Bjorgolfsson, Russia's Boris Berezovsky and Saudi Arabia's Maan Al-Sanea.

Another 13 members of last year's list died. Among the deceased: real estate developer Melvin Simon and glass tycoon William Davidson.

1) Carlos Slim Helu

Net Worth: $53.5 billion

Source: Telecom

Residence: Mexico

• Telecom tycoon who pounced on privatization of Mexico's national telephone company in the 1990s becomes world's richest person for first time after coming in third place last year. Net worth up $18.5 billion in a year. [Many billionaires were created after the privatization of Mexican banks and telecoms in the 1990s.]

• Recently received regulatory approval to merge his fixed-line assets into American Movil, Latin America's biggest mobile phone company.

• His construction conglomerate, Impulsora del Desarrollo y el Empleo, builds roads and energy infrastructure.

• Son of a Lebanese immigrant also owns stakes in financial group Inbursa, Bronco Drilling, Independent News & Media, Saks and New York Times Co.

• Newspaper outfit's stock popped in early March on talk he might buy a controlling stake; he denies the rumor.

• Donating $65 million to fund a research project in genomic medicine with American billionaire philanthropist Eli Broad.

The median household income in the United States for 2008 was $52,029

The median household income in Connecticut for 2008 was $68,595

The Mexican standard of living is ___. The minimum wage is 46 pesos per day, about £2.20, or $4 US Dollars. There is little or no welfare state and no unemployment benefit. Mexico is one of the 4 worst countries in Latin America for income distribution. The bottom 40% of the population share only 11% of the wealth and are considered to live below the Mexican poverty line.

What does the Human Development Index (HDI) say about a country's wealth inequalities?

What about the Happy Planet Index (HPI)? (which takes sutainability into account)

see also United Nations Human Development site
Check out the United Nations Cyber School Bus website!

George vs. George: The American Revolution as seen from Both Sides

2010-03-08T12:01:00.005-05:00

by Rosalyn Schanzer (NatGeo, 2004), ages 8 to adult

p. 15 (where the author is not coming clean) "Many colonists wanted to settle [use the land and make $$ off of this use] the new territory they had helped to win during the Seven Years War, but Great Britain made it illegal [via the Proclamation of 1763]. London thought it was fairest and safest to reserve these lands for Native Americans who had always lived and hunted there." [$$ was at the center!! Fairness to the Indians had nothing to do with it.]

p. 17 (scan full page)

p. 22 sketch of the Boston Massacre is accurate; snowballs, Preston in front of his men, and Preston signaling Bostonians to stop. Some of Preston's men look scared.

p. 27 Samuel Johnson, "How is it that we hear the loudest yelps for liberty from the drivers of Negroes?"

p. 30 "How could a small, poorly trained army with almost no money defeat one of the world's most awesome military powers?"

pp. 32 and 33, sketches of soldiers' uniforms (scan pages)

p. 37 "To American rebels King George was a traitor to his own British citizens in America because he refused to uphold their British constitutional rights." [in the early stages of the Revolution, the majority of American colonists simply wanted their full rights as British subjects. Only a few radicals were thinking independence. And even with the Declaration of Independence, many colonists were very apprehensive.]

p. 46 there was rioting in London by many unemployed and disgruntled workers (the war with the colonies was costing British merchants lots of $$ in lost trade, and this loss trickled down to the workers). British redcoats killed 500 unempoyed BRITISH workers in London during these riots.

p. 48 and who was George Washington to the Iriquois? "The Town Destroyer"

p. 51 Washington to his men at Yorktown, after Cornwallis' surrender (his men had started to celebrate loudly) "Let history huzzah for you."

p. 54 keep in mind that England (soon after 1783 peace treaty) is making more $$ trading with an independent United States than it ever had with its North American colonies. (When peace is a good thing; when letting go of children who want to let go is a good thing for the parent)

Is English the Official Language of the U.S.?

2010-03-04T13:52:00.001-05:00

Read About It

1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus

2010-03-04T09:14:00.033-05:00

by Charles C. Mann (2005)

p. 15 "Advertisements still celebrate nomadic, ecologically pure Indians on horseback chasing bison in the Great Plains of North America, but at the time of Columbus the great majority of Native Americans could be found south of the Rio Grande. They were not nomadic, but built up and lived in some of the world's biggest and most opulent cities. Far from being dependent on big-game hunting, most Indians lived on farms. Others subsisted on fish and shellfish. As for the horses, they were from Europe; except for llamas in the Andes, the Western Hemisphere had no beasts of burden. In other words, the Americas were immeasurably busier, more diverse, and more populous than researchers had previously imagined. . . . . And older, too."

p. 16 re: the Beringia crossing, crossing by boat, and the timing of the "first" Americans: "No consensus has emerged . . . Researchers differ on the details . . . " (50,000 years ago for the first wave of migration ??)

p. 17 a second, independent Neolithic Revolution occured in Mesoamerica (with exact timing uncertain and continually pushed back with new archeological finds)

p. 19 "The Olmec, Maya, and other Mesoamerican societies were world pioneers in mathematics and astronomy--but they did not use the wheel. Amazingly, they had invented the wheel but did not employ it for any purpose other than children's toys. Those looking for a tale of cultural superiority can find it in zero; those looking for failure can find it in the wheel. Neither line of argument is useful, though. What is most important is that by 1000 A.D. Indians had expanded their Neolithic revolutions to create a panoply of diverse civilizations across the hemisphere."

p. 26 "Western scholars have written histories of the world since at least the twelfth century. As children of their own societies, these early historians naturally emphasized the culture they knew best, the culture their readership wanted to hear about. But over time they added the stories of other places in the world: China, India, Persia, Japan. Researchers tipped their hats to non-Western accomplishments in the sciences and arts. Sometimes the effort was grudging or minimal, but the vacant reaches in the human tale slowly contracted."

Part One: Numbers from Nowhere

p. 37 Pauxet was on of the dozen or so settlements in what is now eastern Massachusetts and Rhode Island that comprised the Wampanoag confederation. In turn, the Wampanoag were part of a tripartite alliance with two other confederations: the Nauset, which comprised some thirty groups on Cape Cod; and the Massachusetts, several dozen villages clustered around Massachusetts Bay. All of these people spoke variants of massachusett, a member of the Algonquian language family, the biggest in Eastern North America at the time." The inhabitants of the shoreland here named their land Dawnland, the place where the sun rose, and they refered to themselves as People of the First Light.

p. 38 Ten thousand years ago, when Indians in Mesoamerica and Peru were inventing agriculture and coalescing into villages, New England was barely inhabited, for the excellent reason that it had been covered until relatively recently by an ice sheet a mile thick.

p. 55 By 1616, the pestilence took at least three years to exhaust itself and killed as much as 90 percent of the people (indigenous) of coastal New England."

p. 76 By his death in 1493 C.E., Thupa Inka had sent his armies deep into Ecuador and Chile, doubling the size of Tawantinsuyu again. In terms of area conquered durin ghis lifetime, he was in the league of Alexander the Great and Genghis Khan."

p. 87 "Because the Western Hemisphere had no cows, horses, or camels, smallpox had no change to evolve there. Indians had never been exposed to it--they were "virgin soil," in epidemiologica jargon."

p. 92 "Conquistadors tried to take Florida half a dozen times between 1510 and 1560--and failed each time. In 1532 King Joao III of Portugal divided the coast of Brazil into fourteen provinces and dispatched colonists to each one. By 1550 only two settlements survived. The French were barely able to sustain trading posts in the St. lawrence and didn't even try to plant their flag in pre-epidemic New England. European microorganisms were slow to penetrate the Yucatan Peninsula, where most of the Maya politics were too small to readily play off against each other. In consequence, Spain never fully subdued the Maya. The Zapatista rebellion that convulsed southern Mexico in the 1990s was merely the most recent battle in an episodic war that began in the sixteenth century."

"If Pizzaro had been amazed by the size of the Tawantinsuyu after the terrible epidemic and war, how many people had been living there to begin with? Beyond that, what was the population of the Western Hemisphere in 1491?"

p. 94 (as argued by historians and anthropoligists like Dobyns, placing Indian populations in 1491 at 90 to 112 million) "when Columbus sailed more people lived in the Americas than in Europe."

p. 95 why the misconception about Indian populations? "The smaller the number of Indians the easier it is to regard the continent as empty, and hence up for grabs." It is perfectably acceptable and moral to move into unoccupied land, and land with only a few savages is the next best thing.

p. 99 Between the visits of De Soto and La Salle (according to one historian) the Caddoan population fell from about 200,000 to about 8,500--a drop of nearly 96 percent. In the eigteenth century, the tally shrank further, to 1,400. An equivalent loss today would reduce the population of New York City to 56,000, not enough to fill Yankee Stadium. That's one reason whites think of Indians as nomadic hunters. Everything else--all the heavily populated urbanized socities--had already been wiped out."

p. 105 (footnote) Indians' relative genetic homogeneity does not imply genetic inferiority. It is wrong to assert, "The Europeans' capacity to resist certain diseases made them superior, in the pure Darwinian sense, to the Indians." No: Spaniards simply represented a wider genetic array. Asserting European superiority is like saying that the motley mob at a football game is somehow intrinsically superior to the closely related attendees of a family reunion. [Ha!!]

The Pyramid of the Sun in Teotihuacan (one of the world's largest pyramids!)

p. 118 [all imperialist cultures, even the ancient ones, burn and destroy the history of the losers, and even burn and destroy--rewrite--the history of the victors!!!] "In addition to taking slaves and booty, wartime victors in central Mexico often burned their enemies' codices, the hand-painted picture-texts in which priests recorded their people's histories. Tlacaelel insisted that in addition to destroying the codices of their former oppressors the Mexica should set fire to their own codices. His explanation for this idea can only be described as Orwellian: 'It is not fitting that our people / Should know these pictures. / Our people, our subjects, will be lost / And our land destroyed, / For these pictures are full of lies.' The 'lies' were the inconvenient fact that the Mexica past was one of poverty and humiliation. To motivate the people properly, Tlacaelel said, the priesthood should rewrite Mexica history by creating new codices, adding in the great deeds whose lack now seemed embarassing and adorning their ancestry with ties to the Toltecs and Teotihuacan."

p. 127 [re: Cortes as the conqueror of the city of Tenochtitlan] "But all of his [Cortes'] bold resolve would have come to nothing without the vast indigenous army whose leaders believed they could use the Spanish presence to catalyze the destruction of the Triple Alliance. And even this enormous force might not have overcome the empire if while Cortes was building his ships Tenochtitlan had not been swept by smallpox in the same pandemic that later wiped out Tawantinsuyu. Without any apparent volition by Cortes, the great city lost at least a third of its population to the epidemic, including Cuitlahuac."

p. 157 "At about the time of Clovis almost every one of these species (late Pleistocene fauna) vanished. [mastodon, rhinoceros, great wolves, sabertooth cats, glyptodonts (giant armadillo), sloths, great turtles, huge flightless birds]So complete was the disaster that most of today's big American mammals, such as caribou, moose, and brown bear, are immigrants from Asia. The die-off happened amazingly fast, much of it in the few centuries between 11,500 and 10,000 B.C.E. And when it was complete the Americas had become a zoologically impoverished world, from which all of the hugest, and fiercest, and strangest forms had recently disappeared." [failure to evolve side-by-side with domesticated animals would spell epidemiological disaster for Paleo-Indian decendants who later encountered European explorers and the animals that came with those explorers]

p. 158 "The extinctions permanently changed American landscapes and American history. Before the Pleistocene, the Americas had three species of horse and at least two camels that might have been ridden; other mammals could have been domesticated for meat and milk. Had they survived, the consequences would have been huge. Not only would domesticated animals have changed Indian societies, they might have created new zoonotic diseases. Absent the extinctions, the encounter between Europe and the Americas might have been equally deadly for both sides--a world in which both hemispheres experienced catastrophic depopulation." [did not Europe suffer catastrophic depopulation with the black Plague?? was not this plague, as some scholars challenge, partly zoonotic?]

p. 163 In 1991 the Smithsonian gives back Larsen Bay, Alasaka skeletons, which were reburied by the townspeople. [archaeology or grave-robbing?]

p. 163 [re: many shellfish and minor fauna also going extinct during the Pleistocene ere in North America] "the supposedly objective scientific establishment likes the picture of Indians as ecological serial killers [of the mge-fauna] too much to let it go."

p. 164 "Linguists had long wondered how Indians could have evolved so many languages in the thirteen thousand years since Clovis when Europeans had evolved many fewer in the forty thousand years since the arrival of humans there."

p. 171 the collapse of Clovis consensus [Dillehay's recent findings in Monte Verde, Chile] means that archaeologists must consider unorthodox possibilites, including that some other people preceded the ancestors of today's Indians into the Americas. . . . If Clovis was not first, the archaeology of the Americas is wide open, a prospect variously feared and welcomed. ANYTHING GOES NOW. THE LUNATICS HAVE TAKEN OVER THE ASYLUM.

p. 172 "Given that the Ice Age made Europe north of the Loire Valley unihabitable until some eighteen thousand years ago, the Western Hemisphere should perhaps no longer be described as the "New World." Britain was empty until 12,500 B.C.E., because it was still covered by glaciers. If Monte Verde is correct, as most believe, people were thriving from Alaska to Chile while much of northern Europe was still empty of mankind." [Wow!!!]

p. 177 "Mesoamerica would deserve its place in the human pantheon if its inhabitants had only created maize [which they did], in terms of harvest weight the world's most important crop. But the inhabitants of Mexico and northern Central America also devoloped tomatoes, now basic to Italian cuisine; peppers, essential to Thai and Indian food; all the world's squashes (except for a few domesticated in the United States); and many of the beans on dinner plates around the world. One writer has estimated the Indians developed three-fifths of the crops now in cultivation, most of them in Mesoamerica. . . . In a millennium or less they invented their own writing, astronomy, and mathematics, including the zero."

p. 177 "When the people of the Norte Chico were building this cities, there was only one other urban complex on earth: Sumer."

p. 178 [But!!!] "There was very little exchange of people, goods, or ideas between Mesoamerica and the Andes. Travelers on the Silk Road between China and the Mediterranean had to cross desert and the Hindu Kush, both formidable obstacles. But there was no road whatsoever across the two thousand miles of jagged mountains and thick rainforest between Mesoamerica and the Andes. In fact, there still isn't any road. (the swamps and mountains of the narrow Panama-Colombia border)

p. 179 "Walled off from wet air by both the Andes and the Humboldt Current, the Peruvian littoral is astonishing dry: the average annual precipitation is about two inches. The Atacama Desert, just south of Peru on the Chilean shore, is the driest place on earth--in some places rain has literally never been recorded."

p. 215 "Regarding zero as a dangerous idea, the Catholic Church banned Hindu-Arabic numerals--the 0 through 9 used today--in much of Italy until the fourteenth century."

p. 223 "The complexity of a society's technology has little to do with its level of social complexity--something that we, in our era of rapidly changing, seemingly overwhelming technology, have trouble grasping. Every society, big or little, misses out on obvious technologies. . . . . [But] widespread and open trade in ideas is the best way to make up for [these missing technologies.] But where Europe had the profoundly different civilizations of China and Islam to steal from, Mesoamerica was alone in the world."

p. 246 Why did the Maya abandon all their cities?

[the best-known theory still today] "Maya collapsed because they overshot the carrying capacity of their environment. They exhausted their resource base, began to die of starvation and thirst, and fled their cities en masse, leaving them as silent warnings of the perils of ecological hubris."

p. 247 "Indians as poster children for eco-catastrophe, Indians as green role models: the two images contradict each other less than they seem. Both are variants of Holmberg's Mistake, the idea that Indians were suspended in time, touching nothing and untouched themselves, like ghostly presences on the landscape. The first two sections of this book were devoted to two different ways that researchers have recently repudiated this perspective. I showed that they have raised their estimates of indigenous populations in 1492, and their reasons for it; and then why most researchers now believe that Indian societies have been there longer than had been imagined, and grew more complex and technologically accomplished than previously thought. In this section I treat another facet of Holmberg's Mistake: the idea that native cultures did not or could not control their environment. . . . that Indians left no footprint on the land."

p. 249 "succession" - the ecological phenomenon in which an ecosystem fills in open land. (See "The World Without Us" and "Life After Humans"), in such a successional course, each suite of plants replaces its predecessor, until the arrival of the final, "climax" ecosystem, usually tall forest. (a recent text-book example is the ecosystem recovery around Mount St. Helens)

p. 250 "Different types of disturbance shape different ecosystems: floods in the Nile, landslides on the steep pitches of the Andes, hurricanes in the Yucutan Peninsula. For more than ten thousand years, most North American ecosystems have been dominated by fire."

"Fire benefits plants that need sunlight, while inhibiting those that love the cool gloaming of the forest floor; it encourages the animals that need those plants even as it discourages others; in turn, predator populations rise and fall. In this way fire regulates ecological character."

p. 251 "Incredible to imagine today, bison roamed from New York to Georgia. A creature of the prairie, Bison Bison was imported to the East by Native Americans along a path of indigenous fire, as they changed enough forest into fallows for it to survive far outside its original range."

"in all probability, a substantial portion of the giant grassland celebrated by cowboys was established and maintained by the people who arrived there first."

p. 252 "Indian embers were sparkling in the American night for centuries before the Sumerians climbed their ziggurats."

"Carrying their flints and torches, Native Americans were living in balance with Nature--but they had their thumbs on the scale. Shaped for their comfort and convenience, the American landscape had come to fit their lives like comfortable clothing.

p. 277 "The [Maya] fall has been laid at the door of overpopulation, overuse of natural resources, and drought. It is true that the Maya were numerous; archaeologists agree that more people lived in the heartland in 800 A.D. than today. And the Maya indeed had stretched the meager productive capacity of their homeland."

Chapter 10: The Artificial Wilderness

p. 312 "Columbus was the first to see the yawning biological gap between Europe and the Americas. He was also one of the las tto see it in pure form: his visit initiated the process of knitting together the seams of Pangaea. Ever since 1492, the hemispheres have become more and more alike, as people mix the world's organisms into a global stew. Thus bananas and coffee, two African crops, become the principal agricultural exports of Central America; maize and manioc, domesticated in Mesoamerica and Amazonia respectively, return the favor by becoming staples in tropical Africa. Meanwhile, plantations of rubber trees, an Amazon native, undulate across Malaysian hillsides; peppers and tomatoes from Mesoamerica form the culinary backbones of Thailand and Italy; Andean potatoes lead Ireland to feast and famine; and apples, native to the Middle East, appear in markets from Manaus to Manila to Manhattan. [All of this is refered to as "the Columbian Exchange"] -- Additionally, the Columbian Exchange may have also been responsible for sending disease to Europe: the indigenous peoples of the "new world" were immune to syphilis, however Europenas were not. Syphilis begins to ravage the "modern" Europeans at the time of the Columbian Exchange.

a shorter student version was published in 2009

Persuasively asserts the following:

The Americas were second oldest civilization in the world going back to 3500 B.C., perhaps even as far back as 3700 B.C. Only the Sumerian civilization (in what is today Iraq) is older.
Nican Tlaca (“Native Americans” of this whole continent) were building pyramids at least 500 years before Egypt.
The Americas were not an empty wilderness of savages and unused land (that had no collective ownership). The majority of the population was living in cities and large towns throughout North and South America.
Huaricanga (3500 B.C.) in Peru is now the oldest city found so far. This should be a great pride for all Nican Tlaca. Their ancestors were building great cities and civilizations three thousand years before the Europeans.
The Indigenous Americans were the first people in the world to have a mandatory education system.
The Indigenous Americans had just as large if not larger number of poetry, philosophy, and other written materials that have survived than the Greeks in Europe. These written materials have survived despite European efforts to burn and eradicate.
When criticizing the frequency of human sacrifice and blood offerings performed by the ancient American civilizations, we should not forget that forms of public human sacrifice were also prevalent in Europe (capital punishment, the Inquisition, witch burning), as well as Christianity's blood symbolism with the Eucharist.

Other information from "Before Columbus"

by 8000 B.C. people are living thoughout western South America. (Paleoindians)
Norte Chico is America's first urban complex (3000 - 1800 B.C.) (North of present day Lima, near four river valleys)
Huaricanga, oldest known American city (3500 B.C.), part of the Norte Chico urban complex, on the northern side of the Fortaleza River
Maize "created" 6000 in Mesoamerica. Corn does not germinate by itself naturally. Wrapped in tough husks, maize kernels do not scatter naturally. In order to reproduce maize must be planted by people. Well after the pleistocene extinction, and after Paleoindians had been hunting and animals and fish became scarcer, Mesoamericans had no choice but to become farmers. "Creating" crops like maize were necessary for basic survival.
besides maize, the Mesoamericans also invented the milpa, a system of agriculture in use for thousands of years and still today. A milpa is a field in which farmers plant many different crops at the same time; maize, beans, squash, avocados, sweet potatoes, tomatoes, chili peppers, melons. When grown next to teosinte (maize), beans benefit because they can use the tall teosinte stalks to climb toward the sun. The teosinte benefits because the beans' roots add nutrients to the soil. A milpa also leads to a well-balanced diet. Maize lacks two amino acids the body needs. Beans have these missing amino acids. Together beans and maize make a complete meal. (See modern today scholarship by Frances Moore-Lappe). Most crops drain the soil of nutrients and without changing crops each season, the land soon becomes useless without modern fertilizers. Milpa farming overcomes lots of these problems by keeping many nutrients in the soil instead of depleting them.
They did more than discover maize; they learned how to extract its benefits. Maize has niacin, but they cannot be easily digested unless treated with an alkali. Mesoamericans have been soaking maize in lime, prior to making torillas, and this makes the niacin useable for the human body. Europeans ate maize for years, but suffered from pellagra, disease cause by lack of niacin.
Why no wheels? (lots of theories) Even complex societies do not always invent every possible kind of complex technology. The lack of a particular piece of technology doesn't make a civilization inferior. Europeans, for instance, used an inferior and inefficient plow for centuries while China had been using a far superior one for centuries. One culture's achievement may be another culture's blind spot.
Nobody knows what the Olmec called themselves, but it wasn't "Olmec." (it comes from a Nahuatl word, "people of the land of rubber.", and the name was given by a 20th centuray archaeologist.)
The Spanish wet themselves with terror when Atawallpa and his 6,000 soldiers arrived in Cajamarca. (according to Pizzaro's brother.)
Clovis sites (New Mexico) were occupied 13,500 and 12,900 years ago (radiocarbon dating). But was Clovis first?
By the 1990s, thanks to genetics, it had been confirmed that American Indians came from Asian ancestors. Even today, genetic experts disagree about the dates and number of migrations across Beringia. Is it 40,000 years ago or is to 20,000??
And what of Monte Verde in Chile??!! this site is at least 12, 800 years old. To have traveled from Beringia down to Peru would have taken many thousands of years on top of that!
Were the first Americans "hugging the shore" to get here? Early humans, after all, did use boats. And there is no evidence (sites) along the coast, but this would make sense because once the glaciers receded and once the ice age declined, sea-levels on all coastal areas would have risen dramatically and covered up any paleoindian sites in the Americas.
The ice ages made northern Europe unihabitable until about 18,000 years ago. Britain was covered with glaciers and empty of people until about 12,500 B.C. But by this time, most scientists agree, people were thriving in the Americas, from Alaska to Chile.
Pleistocene megafauna; the Pleistocene epoch ends about 10,000 years ago. The paleoindians had no mammals to domesticate! Would this help or hinder their civilizations? Were the Beringia crossers super-predators? Were the Pleistocene megafauna lacking evolutionary defenses against such a mobil and sapient huneter?
the more types of HLAs in a group of people, the better the groups chances of fighting off a broad range of threats. (human leukocyte antigens) An accident of history gave Native Americans a low variety of HLA profiles. Another accident of history prevented them from being exposed to zoonotic diseases. As a result, the Indians were at high risk when Europeans appeared.
Hernando de Soto, another Spanish adventurer, had the same depopulating effect as did Cortes and Pizzaro; this time in what is now the southern U.S. What was the big factor here? Perhaps it was the fact that de Soto brought pigs with him. 96% population death within a century (such as the Caddo culture of the Mississippi area).
how man people lived in the pre-Columbian Americas? Some say as much as 100 million.
Early Native American societies were older, bigger, and more complex than modern historians once thought. They built cultures who influence remains strong in millions of lives today, from the Arctic through South America. The Americas were not a wilderness when the European settlers arrives.

Remember Little Rock: The Time, the People, the Stories

2010-03-03T08:26:00.022-05:00

by Paul Robert Walker, (National Geographic, 2009)

Timeline and things to consider:

September 4, 1957
Arkansas Governor Orval Faubus
Central High School (Horace Mann High School did not offer challenging courses, instead offered basic courses in math and English but also offered laundry, food service, and other such courses that would prepare young black students for the jobs that were open to them in a still deeply segregated America.)
Elizabeth Eckford, the bravest woman on the planet (wanted to go to Central for, among other things, a speech class that would help her as she pursued a law career)

Elizabeth Eckford, September 4, 1957

Brown v. Board of Ed of Topeka Kansas (1954) "with all deliberate speed" and Brown II (1955) defining for the states what "deliberate speed" should be.
The Little Rock Nine
Hazel Bryan and the image of racism in its starkist contortions of anger
Grace Lorch, a white desegregationist who assisted/protected Eckford on the morning of September 4
The Arkansas National Guard (300 of them): "This school is off limits to Negro students and Negro schools are off limits to white students." (The National Guard is there to protect whom? Who is not being protected? Who is guarding the guardians?)

Terence Roberts and the Arkansas National Guard, September 4, 1957

50th Anniversary in 2007

Little Rock Central High School National Historic Site

in 1956 one hundred senators and congressmen from former Confederate states sign the "Southern Manifesto" claiming that the Supreme Court had no right to interfere with education in the states. "[The Court's ruling] is creating chaos and confusion . . . it is destroying amicable relations between the white and Negro raoces . . . it has planted hatred and suspicion where there has been heretofore friendship and understanding." Few blacks agreed.
medical and law schools at the University of Arkansas had been integrated in 1948; the Little Rock Public Library in 1951; two school districts, Fayettevill and Charleston, in 1954 (but both of these school districts were in the northwest region of the state, where few blacks resided; it was cheaper [$$, fiscal concenrs disguised as morality] for these school districts to integrate the small black population.)
Hoxie, in 1955, a northeastern school district, integrates "peacefully." Staunch segregationists soon after force the Hoxie schools to close momentarily, but a federal court ruled that Hoxie must integrate without interference.
populous segregationist politician Jim Johnson places pressure on Governor Faubus and Little Rock School Superintendent Virgil Blossom, hoping to influence both men, even threatening Blossom, his wife, and his daughters.
By September 3, with the Arkansas National Guard at Central High having been given direct orders from Faubus to keep out the black students, the state of Arkansas is now in direct defiance of United States law (states rights v. federalism).

This, too, is America.

Alex Wilson, southern newspaper editor
and U.S. Marine Corps veteran, beaten by segregationist
white mob outside Central High on September 23, 1957
(Through the entire attack, Wilson never let go of his hat.)

While white rioters focused their attention on Alex Wilson, black students made it inside Central High School on September 23rd. And how did they white students treat the Little Rock Nine? The white student reaction was mixed. Some whites were very friendly despite the rioting outside. Others were not so kind. Melba Patillo heard angry voices in the hallways and was slapped in the face and spi out by a middle-aged white woman (probably the mother of a white student) who had gained acces into the school. The woman shouted in Melba's face, "Nigger! Why don't you go home? Next thing, you'll want to marry one of our children!" Melba was ignored in her classroom by both teacher and students.
On September 24, the Little Rock Nine stayed at home. A mob gathered at the high school, but soon dispersed because no black students arrived that day. May Mann sends a telegram to President Eisenhower anyway "the immediate need for federal troops is urgent." From his vacation home in Newport, Rhode Island, just hours after receiving the telegram, Eisenhower sends out the 101st Airborne division from Kentucky. The Arkansas national Guard was federalized by Eisenhower's orders, thus taking away Faubus' control. That evening, now back at the White House, President Eisenhower addresses the nation on radio and television.

President Eisenhower

Escorted by troops of the 101st Airborne, the Little Rock Nine enter Central High School through the front doors on September 25, 1957. This moment is celebrated as the anniversary of integration at Central High and as one of the greatest moments of America's Civil Rights Movement.

101st Airborne escorting black students into
Central High School on Septmber 25, 1957

Students exit United States Army station wagons outside Central High

The Nine, and so many others like them, were Student Warriors. Day after day they faced insults, threats, physical violence, punching, shoving, spitting, spit balls, rubber bands shot at them, ink sprayed on them, knives flashed in their faces, heads shoved in toilets, glue and tacks on their seats, lockers broken into, books stolen, pushed down stairs, acid thrown in eyes. The students also had to deal with hostile teachers. But some teachers were immediately protective and supportive of the Nine and this protection and support led to a positive classroom environment. Good teaching goes a long way. And outside of the good and bad at Central High were the "silent majority" who choose to passively and quietly look on and do nothing. These silent witnesses were as much to blame as the rioting segregationists. Many silent witnesses just did not know what to do that would not harm / offend anyone.
White students stage a "walk out" on October 3rd. An effigy of a black student is hung, beaten and burned from a tree just outside the school. White students sing and dance around the effigy.
November 1957, gradual withdrawal of the 101st; the federalized Arkansas National Guard assumes security.
February 6, 1958, Minnijean Brown is expelled for rest of school year (soon after, she would attend high school in New York) Minnijean Brown felt she had let down her fellow Little Rock Nine, but the remaining Nine would say the Minnijean was the only one who fought back against the violent taunts of the white students.
May 27, 1958, Ernest Green is the first black student to graduate from Central High; no one appluaded when he received his diploma on stage (although MLK was in the audience).
August 1958, Arkansas state legislature passes law allowing Faubus to close public schools in order to avoid integration.
September 12, 1958, the U.S. Supreme Court rules that integration in Little Rock must continue. Governor Faubus orders all four Little Rock high schools closed. The entire school year 1958-1959 is lost. White students and black students either did not attend any school or went elsewhere.
With more moderates on the school boards, public high schools open again August 12, 1959, on a integrated bases. Three black students attend Hall and three attend Central. IT WOULD TAKE UNTIL 1972 TO INTEGRATE ALL PUBLIC SCHOOLS IN LITTLE ROCK!. Is this the "deliberate speed" the Supreme Court meant in 1954?

Mexico: Where past and present are tightly interwoven

2010-03-01T09:58:00.043-05:00

Aztec Calendar Stone (Stone of the Sun), discovered in Mexico City in 1790

Evolution of the Mexican State (click photo for timeline animation)

The slums, and there are many, in Mexico City are called "lost cities" or ciudades perdidas. Why is this a fitting name for a section of the city in which there is no electricity and no running water? Does "lost" really mean "forgotten" or "ignored?"

Besides Spanish, over 50 Indian, or native, languages are spoken throughout Mexico. In fact, most Mexicans who speak these native languages are bilingual beacuse they speak Spanish as well.

Gracias, Mexico! tomatoes, curries, chiles, turkey, chocolate, corn, beans (including the vanilla bean), and squash all began in Mexico.

The early peoples of Mexico most likely grew beans and squash, then maize (corn), and tomatoes, chili peppers, and avocados. Kernels of corn over 9,000 years old have been found in caves in the south central part of Mexico. This ancient corn differed from today's corn: it was very small. Many varieties of corn are grown in mexico today; soft kernel corn, hard kernels for popping or grinding.

Regarding some aspects of ancient Mesoamerican history, we often hear paleontologist, archeologists and historians say things like, "no one knows for sure."

Olmec is a Nahuatl word for "Rubber People," although the Olmec most certainly did not refer to themselves as such. But rubber was indeed an important part of their culture.

many scholars today refer to the Mesoamerican high cultures such as the Maya as the "Greeks of the Americas" because of the Maya accomplishments in science; and the Romans for their building skills; and the Phoenicians for their ocean-going travels and trade. But are these accomplishments a compliment to the Maya? Maybe the Maya should be recognized for their own accomplishments. Also, for all their great accomplishments, the Maya were also conquerors who brutalized and enslaved other Mesoamerican peoples.

codices (KO-deh-sees or KOD-eh-sees, and KO-deks); [Latin codex, codic-, tree trunk, wooden tablet, book, variant of caudex, trunk.]

The Aztec believed it was necessary to provide the sun with "precious water"--human blood--to keep it shining. Prisoners were killed and their hearts offered to the sun. In fact, this was the primary reason to go to war with neighboring areas--to capture people to be used as sacrifices. Without sun, there would be no life.

The Spaniards buried the Sun Stone which adorned the Temple of Huitzilopochtli in Tenochtitlan. It was unearthed (re-discovered!) in 1790. This rediscovery was a turning point in Mexican cultural pride. It made Mexicans want to know more about their native heritage. Why do conquering peoples think it necessary to "bury" a native peoples' history / heritage? Today the Sun Stone hands in the National Museum of Anthropolgy in Mexico City.

cacao (cah-KAY-oh) beans; from which cocoa and chocolate; Aztec elders drank this as a scared drink; the beans were also used as money.

September 1985 Mexico City earthquake (10,000+ lives lost)

A Flash-based online guide to "What causes earthquakes?"

Nearly 90 percent of the native peoples of Mexico died within one hundred years of the Spaniard's arrival.

mestizos (mess-TEE-sohs), people of mixed Spanish and native parentage; today we have a small percentage of pure indigenous peoples (the Spanish called them indios), a small percentage of pure Spanish descendants, and a bigger percentage of mestizos. October 12 is celebrated in Mexico as Dia de la Raza, or Race Day. It honors people of mixed Spanish and native Mexican heritage. Many do not see Dia de la Raza as a day of celebration, but rather as a painful reminder of how badly native peoples have been treated by those who conquered, or colonized them. Many native Mexicans do not refer to themselves as indigenous or indios but by the names they have called themselves for centuries. The Lacondon Maya who live in Chiapas call themselves hach uinik, or "true people."

criollos, people of European ancestry born in Mexico.

Mexico was named after its capital, Mexico City, whose original name was Mexico-Tenochtitlan, in reference to the name of the Nahua Aztec tribe, the Mexica. The Nahuatl word Mēxihco is composed of the root Mexi and a suffix -co that means "place" or "city." The full name of the city, Mexico-Tenochtitlan, means "the place of the Mexica among the stone-cactuses," in reference to the image of the eagle perched on a cactus that grew from a stone, in the middle of Lake Texcoco. This image is represented in Mexico's coat of arms and flag.

Mexican Independence Day celebrated on September 16. (independence from Spain occured in 1821, with the father of the independence movement Miguel Hidalgo Costilla and his speech Grito de Dolores, Cry of Dolores (a city), given in 1810.

Cinco de Mayo celebrates the victory of the Mexican army and citizens of Puebla over the French on May 5, 1862. France and Napolean III tried to take over Mexico because of debt owed to France. In 1863, the French did take over Mexico and appointed Ferdinand Maximilian as emperor. In 1867 the French reign ends and Maximilain is executed.

From 1876 to 1911 Mexico is goverend by the dictator Porfirio Diaz. The gap between rich and poor grew enormously. The workers were treated no better than slaves. 1910-20 is the revolutionary period in Mexico. Emiliano Zapata was a village farmer turned revolution leader. He led a small army called Zapatistas. Was Zapata a bandit / terrorist or hero?

el Dia de los Muertos, November 1 and 2, day of remembering the deceased, with the dead returning once a year to be fed. Marigolds, monarch butterflies, skeletons and edible candy skulls. Spanish priests combined this ancient tradition with All Saints' Day and All Souls' Day. (compare the Japanese festival called Obon, and the Nepal "Cow Festival".) The Maya celebrated October 30 as a special day for remembering children who had died, believing that the children came back for the night and so prepared treats and decorations for them. The skeleton drawings of Jose Guadalupe Posada.

Feliz Navidad. December 12th is the Feast day of the Virgin (Our Lady) of Guadalupe. Starting December 16th, for nine nights, Las Posadas (The Inns) is celebrated, with fmailies walking through neighborhoods by candlenight acting out the journey of Mary and Joseph to Bethlehem. Some play the part of Mary and Joseph, knocking on the doors of house. Persons in the homes play the part of innkeepers who let the guests inside, where a party takes place. In Mexico presents are given on January 6th, Epiphany, or the day the Three Kings (Magi, Wise Men) presented their gifts to the baby Jesus. January 5th, children put out hay for the Three King's camels and place a pair of their shoes outdoors or near a window. Poinsettia plant is linked to Christmas through a Mexican legend of a poor boy kneeling at the altar of his village church wishing he had something to ffer as a gift. Miraculously, a pointsettia plant sprang up from the boy's feet (La Flor de Noche Buena).

Mexico has more oil and natural gas in reserve than any other country in the world, except Saudi Arabia). Mexico is also the world's leading silver producer; massive food exports as well; and tourism!

More on Mexico here.

La Bandera Mexicana (derived from an Aztec legend that their gods told them to build a city where they spot an eagle and a serpent, which is now Mexico City)

Greetings
Hello: Hola (OH-lah)
How are you?: Como estas? (COH-moh eh-STAHS)
Good morning: Buenos dias (BWAY-nohs DEE-ahs)
Good afternoon: Buenas tardes (BWAY-nahs TAR-dehs)
Good night: Buenas noches (BWAY-nahs NOH-chase)
Bye!: Adios (ah-dee-OHS)
See you later: Hasta luego (AHS-tah loo-EH-goh)

Beginning Phrases
Do you speak: Hablas (AH-blahs)
Spanish: espanol (es-pahn-YOHL)
English: ingles (ing-LACE)
My name is: Me llamo (may YAH-moh)
What is your name?: Como te llamas? (COH-moh tay YAH-mahs)
Let's go: Vamonos (BAH-moh-nohs)
I have . . .: Tengo (TANG-goh)

Key Words
Yes: Si (see)
No: No (noh)
Please: Por favor (por fah-VOHR)
Thank You: Gracias (GRAH-see-ahs)
Friend: Amigo / amiga (ah-MEE-goh)
Good: Bueno (BWAY-noh)
Very Good: Muy bueno (mooey BWAY-noh)

Feelings
I am: Yo soy (yo soy)
You are: Tu eres (too AIR-ehs)
Are you: Eres (AIR-ehs)
happy: feliz (fay-LEASE)
sad: triste (TREESE-tay)
funny: chistoso / chistosa (chees-TOH-so)
nice: simpatico / simpatica (sim-PAH-tee-coh)
miracle: milagro (mee-LAH-gro) (small tin decoration, pinned to saint statue)

Colors
Red: rojo (ROH-hoh)
Orange: anarajado (ah-nar-an-HAH-tho)
yellow: amarillo (ah-mah-REE-yoh)
Green: verde (Bear-day)
blue: azul (ah-SOOL)
pink: rosa (ROH-sah)
Brown: morado (more-AH-tho)
White: blanco (BLAHN-coh)
Black: negro (NAY-groh)
Gray: gris (greese)

About Me
I like: Me gusta (may GOOSE-tah)
Do you like: Te gusta (tay Goose-tah)
to play: jugar (who-GAHR)
to run: correr (cor-RARE)
to eat: comer (coh-MARE)
to walk: andar (ahn-DAHR)
to draw: dibujar (dee-boo-HAHR)
to sing: cantar (cahn-TAHR)

Let's Eat
I'm hungry: Tengo hambre (TANG-goh AHM-bray)
I want: Yo quiero (yo key-AIR-oh)
Do you want: Quieres (key-AIR-race)
milk: leche (Lay-cheh)
juice: jugo (WHO-goh)
bread: pan (pahn)
beans: frijoles (free-HOH-lace)
meat: carne (CAR-nay)
cookies: galletas (guy-YET-ahs)
ice cream: helado (eh-LAH-thoh)
salsa: salsa (SAHL-sah)
tortilla: tortilla (tor-TEE-ah)

Family Ties
Mom: mama (mah-MAH)
Dad: papa (pah-PAH)
brother: hermano (air-MAH-noh)
sister: hermana (air-MAH-nah)
grandmother: abuela (ah-BWAY-lah)
grandfather: abuelo (ah-BWAY-loh)

Topography
mountain range: sierra
river: rio

What happens when artifacts only tell half of the story?

How might an archeologist 500 years from now (in 2510) view the archeological record that we leave behind today in 2010?

Climate and topography greatly affected the ancient civilizations of Mexico. Climate and topgraphy greatly affect Mexicans today! How do topography nad climate affect you and your lifestyle in Connecticut?

Many Maya today attend Christian churches while continuing to pay tribute to their ancient gods. The Spanish purposely mixed Aztec symbols in with Catholicism so that the nearly conquered Aztecs may be more inclinded to embrace the ways and cutoms of their conquerors. We have seen this mixture of Christianity with native cultures / religions in Europe during the early Middle Ages; Greek and Roman "sharing." Where else do we see the blending of cultures?

While art (especially ancient Mesoamerican art) tells us much about these ancient cultures, it provides only a partial picture. We are seeing only the wealthy elite and priestly cultures. Art reflected what was important. We see little about the common people. The common people were not important enough to be painted and sculpted. Archeologists have to speculate in order to fill in the many blanks.

Ask an adult what kids used to do to make themselves be "in style." What is in style today? Is this style in style with every kid you know? What are some ways--large or small--that people you know try to change their apperances to make themselves attractive? If someone says "He/she is a beautiful person," what do you think is meant? (The Maya, especially the ruling class, thought that a steeply sloped forehead and crossed eyes were desirable and beautiful and they therefore altered the body of their infants; cradle boards (skull bones soft and not yet fused) and bead hanging from hair (infant eyes would focus on it))

Make your own codex!

When will we learn? If everything you knew, believed, possessed, and cared about were suddenly forbidden or taken away (or destroyed), what would be the one thing you would miss the most? Would it be the loss of a person, or a place? A belief? A freedom? Such a destruction of people and their belief systems has repeated itself throughout human history right up to today. What are modern examples?

Underneath the imposing and awe-inspiring edifice of a church are the rubble and remains of a destroyed Aztec / native temple.

Rosario Castellanos, herself wealthy but witness to much oppression of the Chiapanecan Indians, wrote poems that searched for a better tomorrow for all: Recuerdo, recordamos, hasta que justicia se siente entre nosotros. "I remember, let us all remember, until justice takes its place among us."

Flag of the EZLN

Lorca

2010-02-24T14:37:00.001-05:00

Running

That which travels
clouds itself.

The running water
can see no stars.

That which travels
forgets itself.

And that which halts itself
dreams.

Pablo Neruda

2010-02-24T14:33:00.001-05:00

I'm Explaining a Few Things

You are going to ask: and where are the lilacs?
and the poppy-petalled metaphysics?
and the rain repeatedly spattering
its words and drilling them full
of apertures and birds?
I'll tell you all the news.

I lived in a suburb,
a suburb of Madrid, with bells,
and clocks, and trees.

From there you could look out
over Castille's dry face:
a leather ocean.
My house was called
the house of flowers, because in every cranny
geraniums burst: it was
a good-looking house
with its dogs and children.
Remember, Raul?
Eh, Rafel? Federico, do you remember
from under the ground
my balconies on which
the light of June drowned flowers in your mouth?
Brother, my brother!
Everything
loud with big voices, the salt of merchandises,
pile-ups of palpitating bread,
the stalls of my suburb of Arguelles with its statue
like a drained inkwell in a swirl of hake:
oil flowed into spoons,
a deep baying
of feet and hands swelled in the streets,
metres, litres, the sharp
measure of life,
stacked-up fish,
the texture of roofs with a cold sun in which
the weather vane falters,
the fine, frenzied ivory of potatoes,
wave on wave of tomatoes rolling down the sea.

And one morning all that was burning,
one morning the bonfires
leapt out of the earth
devouring human beings --
and from then on fire,
gunpowder from then on,
and from then on blood.
Bandits with planes and Moors,
bandits with finger-rings and duchesses,
bandits with black friars spattering blessings
came through the sky to kill children
and the blood of children ran through the streets
without fuss, like children's blood.

Jackals that the jackals would despise,
stones that the dry thistle would bite on and spit out,
vipers that the vipers would abominate!

Face to face with you I have seen the blood
of Spain tower like a tide
to drown you in one wave
of pride and knives!

Treacherous
generals:
see my dead house,
look at broken Spain :
from every house burning metal flows
instead of flowers,
from every socket of Spain
Spain emerges
and from every dead child a rifle with eyes,
and from every crime bullets are born
which will one day find
the bull's eye of your hearts.

And you'll ask: why doesn't his poetry
speak of dreams and leaves
and the great volcanoes of his native land?

Come and see the blood in the streets.
Come and see
The blood in the streets.
Come and see the blood
In the streets!

Latina Poetry

2010-02-24T09:03:00.008-05:00

The Power of Latin Women's Poetry (Unit and Lesson Plans)

Gabriela Mistral, I Am Not Alone

Alfonsina Storni, They've Come

Delmire Augstini

Violeta Parra, (some translated lyrics)

Julia de Burgos

Voces Latinas: Cultural Identity through Poetry and Lyrics

Contents of Curriculum Unit 07.01.11:
Narrative
Latino Poetry
Pablo Neruda
Strategies
Sample Lesson Plans
Endnotes
Bibliography
Web Resources
Filmography
To Guide Entry

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i think in Spanish
i write in English

tengo las venas aculturadas

escribo en spanglish

-Tato Laviera, (1)

This is the reality for many Latinos in the United States. They are straddling two cultures, two worlds, and are uncertain they fit in one or the other. Lots of them speak Spanglish, a hybrid language made up from Spanish by introducing English terms, syntax or even phonetic translations. They are trying to fit in a society that does not completely accept them because they are somehow different. They are trying to decide who they are.

The present unit, Voces Latinas: Cultural Identity through Poetry and Lyrics, is going to deal with abstract notions right from the very beginning. The title itself may present certain difficulties. Terms like "voice" or "cultural identity" have to be scrutinized in order to be understood properly.

The term "voice" is used everywhere and yet it is not easy to describe accurately. This is because it carries many different connotations. Voice is related to the experience of the artist, and also to the way this artist wants to convey a message, point of view, or ideology. Since this unit is dealing with literature, let's be more specific and talk about literary voice. Literary voice allows these authors to use a particular style, tone and a specific language. These abstract and concrete elements define the writer and make his/her voice personal, distinctive and unique. Using voice to express convictions and one's personal ideology in society makes artists (Latino and other minority artists in the United States) to a new dimension: they become political figures and the custodians of the cultural identity they fight to preserve.

This unit seeks to focus on voices, oral experience and listening skills. I want my students to reflect on the importance of expressing one´s opinion. I have found that sometimes, when dealing with certain topics, they are not so used to articulate a personal judgment, they rather repeat someone else´s words. One of the key goals to look for is to encourage students to voice their own points of view, something that will improve their critical thinking skills as well as their fluency in Spanish.

As a high school Spanish teacher, I always work on including aspects of diverse cultural groups in my lessons about peoples from around the world, because I believe my students should be raised to understand and appreciate the highly diverse society that we all live in. I tend to emphasize cultural components of countries of the Hispanic world so students reach a better understanding of the second language they are studying.

I intend to implement in this unit the "5Cs" of the National Standards of Foreign Language Learning-Cultures, Connections (among disciplines), Comparisons (between cultures), Communication, and Communities.

The unit will be used in Hill Regional Career High School (Career for short). Career is an urban magnet school for students interested in health sciences, business, and technology. Finding new ways to motivate my students while learning a foreign language is a challenge I come across on a daily basis.

The unit Voces Latinas: Cultural Identity through Poetry and Lyrics will allow me to achieve a variety of different goals. It will give me the opportunity to introduce literature, and the concept of cultural identity in the classroom. My students have not been exposed to many different cultures and sometimes it is difficult for them to interpret and even understand other perspectives, points of view, or behaviors. Most of them do not enjoy reading and some refuse to do so when asked. By teaching the students to analyze, interpret and understand poems (and songs), I will provide them with the tools to value and enjoy poetry; to acknowledge the relevance of the Latinos in the United States and also the opportunity to learn Spanish while they take in the importance of history and cultural connections.

I would also like to teach my students to be able to identify many of the false stereotypes about different Latino groups in this country. These circulate and spread easily and students tend to believe them without questioning them. Students are not used to thinking critically and therefore many times they tend to believe some pieces of information that are not necessarily truth. As teenagers they are used to label everything and I would like to help them to understand there are things that do not fall in only one category.

This unit is designed to be taught in my Spanish I classes, which are "novice level," according to the American Council of the Teaching of Foreign Languages (ACTFL.) Although the unit has been planned with my students in mind, it could be used on upper level courses with proper modifications. Students at this level demonstrate some accuracy in oral and written presentations when reproducing memorized words, phrases and sentences in the target language; formulate oral and written presentations using a limited range of simple phrases and expressions based in very familiar topics; show inaccuracies and/or interference from the native language when attempting to communicate information which goes beyond the memorized or pre-fabricated. (2)

The classes and the majority of the activities will be held in Spanish whenever possible, although English will also be used. Spanish speaking students in the classroom will get more advanced, modified material and will be asked to read poems more deeply.

The material is designed to be covered within a period of 15-20 sessions, which are eighty two minutes in length. The average class size will be between 15 and 20 students, which is a perfect number for some of the "group classroom" activities I want the students to work on. The unit will be taught during the third and fourth marking periods.

Since Voces Latinas: Cultural Identity through Poetry and Lyrics´ main goal is to teach voice and identity through Latino poetry and music, the first step is to help students recognize how Latino and Latina writers depict tradition, beliefs and heritage in their writings as part of their identity, how they reflect on their cultural identity and how they express their feelings about living in two cultures. We will begin by defining these concepts, as well as the one of literary voice, and identifying all these in poetry.

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Latino Poetry

There is always controversy when using the terms Spanish, Hispanic and Latino. A person is "Spanish" who was born in Spain, and a person is "Hispanic" who descends from one of the other Spanish-speaking countries apart from Spain. The term "Latino" comprises all those countries or territories and nations, apart from Spain, where the predominant language is of a Latin origin, including Portuguese (Brazil) and French (Haiti, Martinique and French Guiana,) as well as Spanish (3).

The debate is always pending about whether the term "Hispanic" is somehow offensive or whether it is correct. I am originally from Spain, and I personally think it is correct and respectful, but I have come across different people and authors who consider it to be offensive because it directly refers to the Spanish heritage and reminds them of the violent and barbaric ways the Spanish imposed their culture on the natives that were in the Americas when they arrived. From now on, and as an act of respect to people who feel so strongly against the term Hispanic, I will use the terms Latino/Latina.

Since Latino poetry is a quite broad topic to cover, I have decided I will narrow it by briefly introducing Puerto Rican poetry and its recurrent main themes. This overview of Puerto Rican poetry is necessary in order to understand Nuyorican poetry and some of its most important authors as well as its founders, such as Miguel Piñero, Miguel Algarín and Pedro Pietri.

Puerto Ricans are in a unique position: as citizens of a commonwealth of the United States, they are considered both American and immigrant. They have a dual identity that marks their language, customs and life. Even though Spanish is widely spoken and used, the United States is an English speaking society. This fact has given special significance to language as an element of personal and cultural identity. Many writers go back and forth between Spanish and English, engaging in a practice known as "code-shifting," "code switching," or "amalgam" and have devised a hybrid sometimes referred to as "spanglish." The theories about the use of "spanglish" are numerous and diverse. Some think this code switching is the product of a living artifact of a culture in evolution, others want to see a degradation of the two languages, and a third explanation of this linguistic shifting would be that authors are seeking to make a political statement about their social status: they are American citizens and yet they are treated differently. Victor Henández Cruz is one of the poets who explores Spanish and English playing with grammatical and syntactic conventions of both languages in order to create his own bilingual idiom--his own "spanglish."

Although dealing next with Mexican and Chicano poetry, Cuban and Dominican poetry, would be the logical thing to do; I have decided not to do so in great depth, so students do not feel overwhelmed. We will work with a couple of poems written by Cuban or Dominican authors: Sandra Maria Esteves or Rhina Espaillat (Dominican) and Gustavo Perez Firmat (Cuban.)

We will then move to the Chilean poet Pablo Neruda since he is one of the most important Latino poets of all times. He is one of the few Latin American poets to win the Novel Prize for literature. His poetry is not too complicated in structure, so I do not think my students will have many problems understanding it. Neruda will be the last author we are going to be working with. By then, all the students will have a certain level of understanding of Spanish, and therefore it should not be too difficult to work with the author in his mother language.

Puerto Rican Poetry

Puerto Rico is a self-governing territory associated with the United States with the status of a Commonwealth ("estado libre asociado" in Spanish.) This unique position is the result of a complicated history of invasions and cessions. After the Spanish-American war, Spain had to cede Puerto Rico to the United States, and entered the twentieth century under its rule. In 1917, the Jones-Shafroth Act granted Puerto Ricans U.S. citizenship. A status they still hold today. In the late 1940's, many Puerto Ricans started to move to the mainland to seek better economic conditions. New York and other Northeast cities were the destination for thousands of Puerto Ricans who were hired in farms and factories. This transition was not easy. These Unites States citizens experienced racial discrimination, linguistic barriers and other problems. These episodes and difficulties are the main themes documented in their writings.

Themes such as identity, social background, cultural heritage and racial, ethnic or linguistic barriers are common or even recurrent in Puerto Rican literature. Some authors also include themes of life in the island and life on the mainland and the conflict of being a part of the same culture. This is because, as mentioned before, "they struggle to define their identity: they are caught between their Caribbean heritage and the culture of the United States, the poets reveal their uncertainty about who they are." (4) The question of identity and the fact that these authors live "across cultures" are important in most Puerto Rican writers.

Those writers who came to the United States are still considered Puerto Rican, and most of the times they share many of the themes and influences of those who live and write in the island and of those who go back and forth. For the sake of structure in the unit, and in order to keep it simple for my students, I am going to separate Puerto Rican and Nuyorican poets in two different groups.

Some of the movements and themes that have influenced both poets in the island and in the mainland are Spanish and African influences, the nationalist and the modern movements. Some of these themes are: romance, "here and there" (or "aquí y allá," in Spanish)--the "love and yearning for an island homeland while being forced to remain somewhere else," self identity and countryside and nature (5.)

Even though they share many of the main features, themes and styles, I am going to separate the Puerto Rican writers from the Nuyorican ones, as a simple way of organizing the authors in a logical way for students to understand the few differences between them. Some of the most important and influential of the Puerto Rican poets are:

Julia (Judith) Ortiz Cofer

Poet and novelist born in the island. She moved at the age of two to New Jersey with her father when he -a military officer-was transferred there. Ortiz Cofer has lived in both the island and the United States for extended periods of time. As a writer, she describes reactions and feelings of character searching for identity.

The daily life and characters of a Puerto Rican barrio in the 1960´s and the 1970´s are the main themes she explores in Silent Dancing: A Partial Remembrance of a Puerto Rican Childhood (1991) and in The Latin Deli (1993,) two collections of her best poems, stories and essays. The voices of some of the marginal characters she introduces in her writings, are among the best literary depictions of daily life in the Hispanic barrios (6).

Sandra María Esteves

Sandra María Esteves is a poet of Puerto Rican and Dominican heritage, she encourages readers to search for their true identities. She identifies herself as a "Puerto Rican-Dominicana-Boriqueña-Tahino-African-American." She is the author of five volumes of poetry titled Contrapunto in The Open Field (1998,) Undelivered Love Poems (1997,) Bluestown Mockingbird Mambo (1990,) Tropical Rain: A Bilingual Downpour (1984,) and Yerba Buena (1981).

Aurora Levins Morales

Of Puerto Rican and Jewish descent, Aurora Levins Morales defines herself in terms of her rich and diverse ancestry. Born Puerto Rico, she moved to Chicago when she was thirteen years old. Some of the major themes in her poems and essays are identity, feminism, multicultural histories of resistance, how the systems of oppression affect the identity of an individual and the importance of languages among others.

Some of the authors who have influenced her writing are the North American feminist Alice Walker and two Latin American writers: Pablo Galeano and Pablo Neruda. She wrote a collection of essays, letters and poems called with her mother, Rosario Morales, called Getting Home Alive. These pieces include a number of topics including feminism, family ties and politics. Even though written in English, the collection is considered a landmark of Puerto Rican literature. My students will analyze and discuss the poem "Child of the Americas" (Seeley, 105) in order to write their own version of the poem to reflect on their own inheritance and cultural identities.

Tato Laviera

Another Puerto Rican author born in the island. Tato Laviera is a poet and playwright who lives in New York, where he is deeply committed to the social and cultural development of Puerto Ricans. Laviera writes in English, Spanish and Spanglish since his poetry is concerned with bilingual and bicultural issues. The recurrent themes in his poetry are life in New York and African Caribbean traditions. One of the poets who inspired him the most was Luis Pales Matos, who created poems incorporating African vocabulary and rhythms, as well as African themes. His poems include refrains, idiomatic expressions, poetic declamation, and music such as salsa, rumba and mambo, etc.

Some of his collections of poems are La Carreta Made a U-Turn and Loisaida (Lower East Side) Streets: Latinas Sing and AmeRican. He denounces injustices and examines some of the problems affecting Latina women.

Julia de Burgos

De Burgos is considered one of the greatest and most influential Puerto Rican poets of all times. She was born in Puerto Rico in 1914, and lived in the island until she moved to Cuba and New York later on. She was a strong advocate for the independence of Puerto Rico, as well as a Civil Rights activist for women and Afro-Caribbean writers. Some of the poets who influenced her early poetry were Pablo Neruda, Rafael Alberti and Clara Lair. Some of the most relevant poems for our unit are: "Rio Grande de Loiza", "Poema para mi Muerte" (My Death Poem), "Yo Misma Fui mi Ruta" (I Was My Own Path), "Alba de mi Silencio", and "Alta Mar y Gaviota".

Nuyorican Poetry

The term "Nuyorican" was originally coined by Puerto Ricans on the island to refer to those who settled in New York. At first, the term had negative connotations. Some people used the term to refer to many Puerto Ricans settled in different neighborhoods of Manhattan such as El Barrio (East Harlem) or what was called Loisaida (Lower East Side). In the 1960´s Puerto Rican authors began to reclaim the term to identify themselves with their own history and cultural affiliation to a common ancestry while being separated from the island, both culturally and physically. Lots of these writers were involved with the "Young Lords," a Puerto Rican Hispanic Nationalist group, and were also highly concerned with the Civil Rights of their fellow countrymen.

Jesús Colón and his work A Puerto Rican in New York and other Sketches (1961,) helped to set the stage for the Nuyorican movement as such. The book was a collection of stories of human interest and a social history of New York. Since this was the first book written in English by a Puerto Rican, it was able to chronicle for English-speaking audiences how Puerto Ricans shaped and were shaped by the history of New York City.

Miguel Algarín, Tato Laviera and Miguel Piñero established the Nuyorican Poets Café in New York´s East Harlem. They met with other writers, artists and community people in order to criticize, condemn and denounce social and political injustice. Their language is quite strong and lacks any kind of lyrical qualities; it is the street language of blacks and Puerto Ricans in El Barrio. Such a stylistic choice implies a resistance to Americanization, and an expression of dignity and pride in the puertorriqueño's heritage. Their poetry wants to awaken its people and shock them into action as, for example, in Pedro Pietri's "Puerto Rican Obituary," where he shows that the dream does not exist.

Some of the best known writers responsible for the Nuyorican movement are:

Jesús Colón

Jesús Colón could be considered the intellectual founding father of the Nuyorican movement. He was born in Carey, a tobacco growing area of the island. He stowed away on the S.S Carolina in 1918 and landed, like so many other Puerto Ricans, in New York. He started writing very young, influenced by the oratory of readers hired by cigar makers to entertain them while rolling the cigars. Although he never earned a living as a journalist, Jesús wrote for several newspapers in New York and Puerto Rico. He wrote articles, news commentaries, poetry and short stories. He was concerned with the social and economic conditions of Puerto Ricans in New York City and on the island, so he run for numerous public offices.

He wrote about his own experiences and those of others. Colón acknowledged the importance of the Puerto Rican heritage and its people. He wrote about the immigrant experience and their daily encounters with racism and other forms of discrimination.

Colón's work is reminiscent of Walt Whitman and Zora Neale Hurston. But it was Langston Hughes, also a light-skin mulatto, who had much in common with Colón. Both were active in New York's Black and Latino communities. Both portrayed the day-to-day lives of ordinary people. Both wrote about racial injustice and both wrote in English and Spanish. In his time, Colón's simple and incisive prose informed and entertained the masses. Today, they give us a sense of historic continuity, connecting our present to our past and our differences to a common humanity. (7)

Miguel Piñero

This poet, playwright and actor was born in Guaravo, Puerto Rico. And, as many others came to the Unites States while he was a child. He was able to relate to the immigrant´s struggle to find a position in society and, after being incarcerated, he found success with the play Short Eyes: a portrait of life, love and death among prison inmates he wrote while he was at Sing Sing. He was concerned with social classes and the problems of the immigrants. His revelations concerning individual indentity deal with people in extreme difficulty. Other plays include: Eulogy for a Small Time Thief, Midnight Moon at the Greasy Spoon, Straight from the Guetto and The Sun Always Shines for the Cool.

Miguel Algarín

Algarín had a lot to do with the Nuyorican Movement. Poets and artists used his living room to meet and dicuss about poetry, art, politics or even to recite their poems. Unlike some of the other Nuyorican and Puerto Rican writers, Algarín was raised in a culturally-minded house and recived a formal education all the way through college.

Pedro Pietri

Pietri was born in Ponce, Puerto Rico. This poet and playwright lived most of his life in New York, where he moved when he was three years old. After graduating from high school, he left to fight in Vietnam. The main factors that influenced his poetry where the discrimination he witnessed while growing up, and his experiences in the war.

Very involved in politics -he was part of the "Young Lords;" he was a non-conformist, constantly reminding his fellow writers of the importance of tolerance, intellectual freedom and the value of humanity. His work denounces the system and invites Puerto Ricans to exhibit dignity and pride in their heritage, and also urges them to avoid complete cultural assimilation in order to keep their own identity.

His "Puerto Rican Obituary" is one of his finest poems in which he deals with the individual experiences of five Puerto Ricans: Juan, Miguel, Milagros, Olga and Manuel, their hopes and dreams, their physical and spiritual death, etc. The poem is presented as an epic of the Puerto Rican community in the United States with sarcasm and irony. The author presents the suffering of these Puerto Ricans and how their collective and individual dignity dies. They try to reach the "American Dream," but it is impossible for them, the dream becomes a nightmare.

Some other works include: Invisible Poetry (1979,) The Masses are Asses (1984,) Lost in the Museum of Natural History (1980,) Rent-A-Coffin, Illusions of a Revolving Door: Plays (1992) and Traffic Violations (1983.)

Victor Hernandez Cruz

He was born in Aguas Buenas, Puerto Rico and moved to New York City with his family at the age of five. He published Snaps, his first collection of poetry when he was only 20 years old. As a poet, he is introspective and abstract, preoccupied with form, rhythm and language. As mentioned before, he plays with English and Spanish words and their semantics, with their spellings and phonetics, suggesting at a times simultaneous readings as for example, in the title of his By Lingual Wholes.

Unlike his Nuyorican counterparts, Tato Laviera and Miguel Algarín, he lacks referential context to life in Puerto Rico and popular culture. His works portray Hispanic images and symbols in the urban setting. His is the language of the urban, intellectual Latino who cannot survive without transforming the past into the present.

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Pablo Neruda

Pablo Neruda is one of the great poets of the 20th century. Born in Chile in 1904, he was one of the few Latino writers to win the Novel Prize of Literature, which he did in 1971. Gabriel Garcia Marquez calls him "the greatest poet of the 20th century in any language."

He could also be considered one of the universal poets of the modern era, not only because of his career as a diplomat, but also because his poems have been translated into many languages.

Born Neftalí Ricardo Reyes Basoalto, he used the pseudonym Pablo Neruda , taken from the Czech writer Jan Neruda (1934-1891,) to hide his poems from his father. He was born in Parral and grew in Temuco where he met Gabriela Mistral, another Chilean poet who also won the Novel Prize. His first poem "Entusiasmo y perseverancia" is published in 1917 in "La mañana," a local newspaper. Many poems appeared in different publications and magazines from then on, and he won different literary prizes and awards. In 1920 he moved to Santiago to study. Some of the poems he wrote those years were published in his first book, Crepusculario (1923.) Pablo Neruda's first mayor publication would be published one year later. Veinte poemas de amor y una canción desesperada is one of his best known and more translated works.

Neruda then moved to represent Chile as a consul. He lived abroad from 1927 to 1943. He served in Burma, Ceylon, Java, Singapore, Buenos Aires, Barcelona, Madrid, Paris and Mexico City. His poetic production during this period included Residencia en la tierra (1933,) a collection of esoteric surrealistic poems that marked his literary career.

In Madrid, in what could be called the pre-Civil War years, Pablo came into contact with many politics and met some of the most important poets and intellectuals of the Spanish "Generación del 27": Federico García Lorca, Rafael Alberti or Miguel Hernandez among others. The Spanish Civil War and the murder of Garcia Lorca affected Neruda deeply and he joined the Republican Movement in Spain and then in France, where he started working in España en el corazón (1937.) This collection of poems is full of political and social content and had a great impact since it was printed in Spain, during the Civil War. This same year he went back to Chile.

In 1939 Neruda was appointed consul for the Spanish emigration in Paris and shortly after he moved as the consul general to Mexico, where he rewrote Canto general de Chile, transforming it into an epic poem about South America, its peoples, its nature and its historical destiny. The final title of these 250 poems grouped in fifteen literary cycles is Canto General, and it was published in Mexico in 1950.

In 1943 Pablo returned to Chile, where he was appointed senator of the Republic in 1945. He joined the Communist Party. In 1947 he had to live underground in his own country as a result of his protests against the president's repressive policy towards striking miners. He was prosecuted as subversive; he could leave in 1949, when he could fled over the Andes to Argentina. He spent three years in exhile: Argentina, Europe, India, China and the Soviet Union. Most of the works written during this period were very political. A good example of this would be Las uvas y el viento (1954.)

In 1952 he was able to go back to Chile since the political situation had become favorable. From 1954 to 1964, he embarked on a prolific period of writing. In 1954 he published one of his major works, Odas elementales. This collection of poems contained descriptions of every day objects and situations. The poems were written in a new style: simple, humorous and direct.

In 1958 he published Estravagario, a collection that makes a noteworthy change in his poetry. He reverts to the sense of humor he showed in his first works and reencounters the avant-garde and surrealism. Neruda's poetic production during these years was marked and stimulated by his personal happiness and international recognition and fame: he published 20 more books between 1958 and his death in 1973, and 8 more appeared posthumously.

Some of his last works are Cien sonetos de amor (1959), with poems dedicated to Matilde Urrutia, his wife; Memorial de Isla Negra, a poetic work of an autobiographic character in five volumes, published on the occasion of his sixtieth birthday; Arte de pajáros (1966); La Barcarola (1967); Las manos del día (1968); Fin del mundo (1969); Las piedras del cielo (1970.)

In 1970 Neruda traveled to Paris. While there, serving as the Chilean ambassador to France, he became ill and returned to his country, where he died two weeks after the CIA-backed coup in 1973 that brought down the democracy.

Music

I am introducing the musical component on the present unit in order to make connections between music and poetry. My students are not too perceptive when I talk about poetry in general. But, I am sure they will take pleasure on poems when they experience the correlation between music and poetry. Music is the perfect vehicle to explore culture and identity. The importance of music in any society is obvious, but it is especially so in the Latino world where almost every country has a traditional rhythm. By introducing music in the unit, I am focusing on voices, oral experience and listening skills in a way my students cannot resist.

The "trova" is a typical kind of music that has root in many regions of the world. Every region expresses popular feelings through music. The most important component in la "trova" is the lyrics, and therefore rhythms are very simple. The "trova" has its origins in the middle Ages (11th century) in France, when epic poems were the entertainment of the privileged classes. The troubadours memorized these epic poems in order to recite them and spread them throughout the land. These poems/songs dealt mainly with themes of chivalry and courtly love.

The "juglares" (minstrels in English,) played a similar role at the time. They were also entertainers, but in a more popular sense of the word: they sometimes performed compositions written by troubadours, but more often, they recited other genres such as chansons de geste (epic narratives) etc.

Similar to the Tobadours or minstrels are the "Griots." They are West African poets, praise singers, and wandering musicians, considered a repository of oral tradition.

These griots live in many parts of West Africa, including Mali, Gambia, Guinea, and Senegal. This concepts of oral culture and "voice" are crucial for my students to understand, since they are the basis of the present unit.

La Nueva Trova Cubana

"La Nueva Trova," called New Ballad in English, is a traditional genre that condemned social and cultural differences, promoted the revolution, and therefore, it had the government's support. The songs are nothing but poems (often political) that protest specific situations: "un trovador es un poeta con su guitarra," ("a trovadour is a poet with his guitar"), Silvio Rodriguez observed.

This Cuban music movement has its roots in the second half of the 19th century, but it re-emerged in the mid 1960´s. It combined traditional folk elements with heavily controversial political lyrics. The "Nueva Trova Cubana" became known as such after a concert in "La Casa de las Américas" (The House of the Americas) in which Silvio Rodriguez, Pablo Milanés and Noel Nicola interpreted their lyrics.

Most of these artists are still very famous in Cuba and the rest of the Spanish speaking countries. Pablo Milanés, Silvio Rodriguez, Carlos Varela y Habana Abierta, among others, still write songs criticizing the United States and the country´s international policy, as well as the United States' embargo trade with the island.

There are connections between the "Nueva Trova Cubana" and the "Trova Puertorriqueña." The elements of protest are common to both (this is a common pattern for all the rest of Latin American countries and Spain.) The themes are slightly different when dealing with political protest: the "trova Cubana" condemns the situation they live under the United States embargo, and the "Trova Puertorriqueña" is (and was in the past) more into local matters such as Vieques, etc. The "Nueva Trova" impacts many Hispanic and Latino American countries influencing the Chilean, Brazilian, Uruguayan or Argentinian "Nueva Canción."

It is of great importance that the trovadours work with the lyrics (or poems) much more than the music, which is of course important, but has a secondary interest. Habana was where "La Nueva Trova" had its first important realization and where the key artists met. Among them we could recognize Silvio Rodriguez, Pablo Milanés, Noel Nicola, Sara González, Pedro Luis Ferrer, Vicente Feliú, Mike Purcell, Amaury Pérez and vocal groups such as Tema4, Manguaré, Moncada, Mayohuacan, Los Cañas, Síntesis, Mezcla, Nuestra América, Dúo de Adolfo Costales and Margarita Mateos.

Trova Puertorriqueña

As mentioned before, the Trova has a strong association with Cuba. It was also big in Puerto Rico. Prose and poetry are added to popular and traditional rythms in order to create a new way of expression accessible to everyone. The "Nueva Canción" emerges in the late 1960´s as an evolution of the protests led by university students. (8)

Roy Brown

Many people think that in order to talk about the Trova Puertorriqueña, it is necessary to talk about Roy Brown. He was born in Orlando of an American naval officer and a Puerto Rican woman. He grew up in those days when racism, the Civil Rights movement and the Vietnam War were the main issues of society. These events formed part of his way of thinking and they were to shape his ideology.

My students, specially those of Puerto Rican or Hispanic descent, will recognize Roy Brown in part because of how famous he is, and in part because he comes to New Haven for concerts quite often.

Other key artists and groups in the "Trova Puertorriqueña" are: Zoraida Santiago, Fiel a la Vega and Taller de cantautores.

Reggaeton

Reggaeton blends diverse music styles. It is a fusion of hip-hop with other music influences such as Jamaican reggae and dancehall with various Latin American rhythms such as bomba, bachata, merengue or plena. The music usually accompanies rapping in Spanish, English or both, "Spanglish."

This form of urban music became popular in the early 1990s especially to the Latino population. It is important to know that reggaeton has its own and specific rhythm and could never be considered Latino hip-hop.

When working with reggaeton in the classroom, I am sure I will the one to learn the most. This is the reason I am not expanding the background information in this section too much. The final project I refer to in the following section (the strategies section,) will provide more details about my expectations on the topic.

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Strategies

With the hope of giving students the opportunity to learn about Latino poetry, and to be able to analyze and decode many of the social, cultural and political references of the poems without overwhelming them, I am going to gradually present historical and literary information.

The first day I introduce the unit, I will use the "pass the bull" strategy I open every lesson with. I toss around a foam bull toy, while asking various questions to students. These questions are related to material already taught in class: it could be grammar, or Spanish culture, for example. It is a valuable strategy since it helps me assess my students on a daily basis. It helps to get students focused, and it also helps to start the class in a good tone, since they like it a lot.

I will be asking students general questions about poetry, to grasp what their disposition is towards it. I will give each student a graphic organizer in which they will write what is poetry, they will name/list poets they know, and what they would expect to learn throughout the unit. This will help students to reflect on poetry and in the process of learning.

Immediately after this introductory activity, I will give students a copy of the poems "On the Question of Race" written by the Latino poet and performer Enrique Avilés and the poem with the same title written by Michelle A. Banks, in 1991. Both poems will be juxtaposed in the same page so students can contrast them easily after reading them aloud. Since a high percentage of the students at Career are either African-American or Latino, students will be asked to get into mixed groups and discuss what are the elements "stereotypically Hispanic" in the Quique Avilés version and what are the "African American stereotypes" in the Michelle A. Banks one. This activity has a double purpose: first, students will figure out by themselves how foolish stereotypes are, and second, they will actually contrast and compare each other's cultural heritage to find out they are not too different.

Following the exercise, the whole class will engage in a discussion about the absurdity of stereotypes. My intention with this opening lesson is to call students' attention to the subject matter in an effective way so they will be motivated.

Analyzing poems

Students will read and discuss in detail poems of Pablo Neruda, Aurora Levins Morales ("Child of the Americas"), Rhina Espaillat ("You Call me by Old Names") and Nuyorican poets such as Pedro Pietri ("Puerto Rican Obituary"), Hernández Cruz, Tato Laviera, Carlos Conde ("Así Era Yo") and Sandra María Esteves ("Take Off Your Mask.")

Students will work with poems in groups, individually, or as a whole class. They will analyze the language of the poems (imaginative, political and cultural aspects) and closely examine the usage of Spanglish.

Music

Working with music will be crucial for the development of the unit. We will be using music as a tool whenever possible: Neruda´s poems interpreted by different international artists, Cuban and Puerto Rican trovadours, hip-hop and reggaeton songs. . .

I will be giving students the transcription of the poems and lyrics with numbered blank spaces (I choose in advance, depending on the grammar structures we are studying, vocabulary I want to review, etc.) Students will listen to the songs and/or poems at least a couple of times. The first time they will be asked to listen carefully and to read along to see if they understand. The second time they will fill in the blanks. The teacher will ask if a third time is necessary. If so, the teacher will write a "word bank" on the board to make it easier.

A couple of students will read the lyrics/poem as a way of correcting the exercise. We will stop in each stanza in order to analyze deeply the symbols, and images, and explain political and socio-cultural meanings. The teacher will question different students on their interpretation of different matters.

We will also be comparing different versions of poems interpreted by different artists. One example could be Pablo Neruda´s "Poema XV": we will first listen to Neruda read the poem (9.) After asking for impressions and interpretations from the students, we will listen to Alejandro Sanz reciting it (10) and then Adriana Varela (11) sing the poem with tango music. Students will compare them and write a short essay explaining how different voices can actually change the perception of the same poem.

Movies

Since this is essentially a literary unit, we will work with audiovisual resources. We will view fragments of The Nuyourican Poets Café (USA, Ray Santisteban, 1994) and The movie Every Child is Born a Poet (USA, Jonathan Meyer Robinson, 2002). The purpose is to show students the foundation of the Nuyorican Movement in the case of the first movie and, the interdependence between film and literature through the film adaptation of Piri Thomas´s Down These Mean Streets.

Nuyorican Poets Café

The Nuyourican Poets Café (USA, Ray Santisteban, 1994) is a 14-minute documentary that features Miguel Algarín, one of the founders of the Nuyorican Movement and other poets such as Willie Perdomo, Ed Morales, Pedro Pietri and Carmen Bardeguez Morales.

The movie won 1995 New Latino Filmmaker´s Festival´s Best Documentary.

Every Child is Born a Poet

The movie Every Child is Born a Poet (USA, Jonathan Meyer Robinson, 2002) is a movie that combines poetry, documentary and drama. The movie is based in Piri Thomas´ autobiographical novel called Down These Mean Streets, written 1967.

The film includes different artistic products such as still photographs, rare archival footage, and dramatizations in order to explore the author´s use of creativity.

There will be a whole lesson to go along with the movie and the reading of selected fragments or chapters of the novel. Students will be able to study the connections of film and literature and how the two complement each other.

Glossaries

Poetry Terms

Since we are in a language class, this group is going to develop a glossary with poetry terms that appear while working with the poems. Students will have to put it together and organize it thoughtfully. They will have to present it to the teacher a couple of days before their presentation of the final project to the class. Parts of the glossary will be on the final assessment or quiz.

Spanglish Dictionary

Students will also collect "Spanglish" terms and expressions that appear throughout the unit. Explanations of these will be required.

Final Project
I would like to culminate the unit with a final project that will have students to look for a poem or song (or even write one if they feel confident enough), analyze it and make a physical project that they will be explaining and presenting to the rest of the class. There will be an alternative to this final project consisting on teaching hip-hop to the teacher. Students will have to present a physical project and an explanation to the teacher and students. This project will need to have connections to the Hispanic world: hip-hop in Spanish, the presentation being in Spanish, etc.

Even though students will get a detailed rubric, as always, some of the choices will be open so I leave a little window for creativity. I always do so, since I consider it is important for students to think and not only to follow directions!

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Sample Lesson Plans

Lesson One: "On the Question of Race"
Goals

1. To introduce students to poetry by comparing and contrasting two quite similar versions of the same poem.
2. To guide students to reject stereotypes as a meaningless way of generalization.

Learning Objectives

As a result of this lesson students will:

1. Practice their oral reading skills.
2. Practice their reading comprehension skills.
3. Learn how to deal with poetry.
4. Learn basic poetry terms such as stanza (estrofa) or verse (verso), etc.
5. Broaden vocabulary.
6. Understand the dangers of stereotypes.
7. Start thinking about the concept of identity.

Materials

-Graphic organizer.
-Copy of Enrique Aviles´ and Michelle A. Banks´ poem "On the Question of Race" (juxtaposed in the same page.)
Initiation

"Pass the bull" strategy: after introducing the curriculum unit to the students, I will toss the bull around asking them what are their expectations and what they are hoping to learn.

Procedure

1. Students will be given a graphic organizer in which they will have to write words or definitions that the word poetry suggests them. (In Spanish!!) Some of the students will read their reactions aloud.
2. A volunteer will go to the board and write Hispanic and Black in two different columns. Students will do the same thing in their notebooks. (Students will be reminded that RESPECT is one of the golden rules in my classroom)
3. Students will be asked to brainstorm to fill in the two columns, giving characteristics of the two groups.
4. The teacher will start questioning everything on the board, breaking their arguments, without giving them the "right" answer.
5. The teacher will make groups of 3 or 4 students.
6. The teacher will give students the "On the Question of Race" poem.
7. Different students will be asked to read the poem aloud. The two poems will be read together, so a student will read Enrique´s stanza, followed by a student reading Michelle A. Banks´ same stanza (therefore, some of them will be repeated, but some others will show the difference between "Hispanic" and "Black.")
8. Students will get into their groups and discuss the poem. They will argue about stereotypes.
9. Students and teacher will go through the poem, analyzing it. The teacher will "play fool" and let students to explain the poem to her.

Closure

The teacher will divide the class in two groups. One group will defend the use of stereotypes and the other group will be against them. The teacher will give them some time to prepare a short strategy for a debate that will take place.

Lesson Two: Pablo Neruda
(This lesson plan is to be developed in one 82-minute period. However, it can be changed according to teachers needs)

Goals

To introduce students to the process of reading, understanding, and appreciating poetry.

To help students look for a poem to recognize different voices.

Learning Objectives

As a result of this lesson the students will be able to:

1. Develop active reading, writing and oral language skills.
2. Develop listening comprehension skills.
3. Understand, analyze and interpret a poem. 4. Compare different interpretations of the same poem.

5. Broaden vocabulary.
Materials

-Copies of Pablo Neruda´s "Poema XV" (from Veinte poemas de amor y una canción
desesperada) in Spanish and a good English translation.
-"Poema XV" (Vol. 1, song 4) in Marinero en tierra: tributo a Neruda. Warner Music
Chile, 2004.
-"Poema XV" (song 5) in Neruda en el corazón. BGM Music Spain, 2004.
-Computer, speakers, internet access.
-Brief handout (biography and concise description of his main works) on Pablo Neruda.
Special Needs

Students are familiar with the writer because they have previously researched and read about Neruda on the website www.fundacionpabloneruda.cl.

Initiation

"Pass the bull:" students will be asked brief general questions about the author and his work.

Procedure

1. Different students will read aloud the brief handout on Neruda´s life and work.
2. The teacher will ask students different questions: (search for information)
3. The teacher will read "Poema XV" to students in Spanish, asking them to verbally
describe what it means and what its content is.
4. The teacher will provide students a copy of the poem with blank spaces (could be
verbs, or adjectives...)
5. Students will listen to the poem read by Alejandro Sanz. They will listen to
the poem several times in order to make sure they fill in the blanks appropriately.
6. Different students will read out loud one stanza, giving their responses to the
blanks and explaining the meaning of that particular stanza.
7. Students and teacher will discuss the poem in detail: go over new vocabulary and
the meanings of the different images. After this, the teacher will provide students a
copy of the English translation of the poem to make sure everyone has understood it.
8. Students and teacher will listen to Adriana Varela´s tango version of the poem.
9. Students and teacher will discuss and compare both versions. Teacher will ask them
specific questions about their reaction to the different versions.
10. Teacher will ask students to write a 8-10 line paragraph describing personal
reactions to the poem and a second 8-10 line paragraph comparing and contrasting
both versions.
Closure

Students will listen Pablo Neruda´s reading of his own poem.

Assessment / homework

Students will be asked to look for their favorite poem to bring to class to share.

Lesson Three: Down These Mean Streets, Piri Thomas
(This lesson plan is to be developed in an 82 minute class. However, it can be changed according to teachers needs)

Goal

To understand and analyze the connections between film and literature and how both represent and explore human experience.

Learning Objectives

As a result of this lesson the students will be able to:

1. Search for information in a text.
2. Develop their reading and listening comprehension skills.
3. Identify and analyze cultural aspects of the Puerto Rican world
4. Make inferences about ideas implicit in a written text in order to compare them to its
adaptation on screen.
5. Understand how writers or film directors manipulate stories in order to achieve a
desired effect.
Materials

-Piri Thomas´ Down These Mean Streets and its adaptation in film titled Every Child
is Born a Poet: Life and Work of Piri Thomas
-DVD player, TV.
-Handout with specific questions on the chapters of the book /memoir to help students
understand the film better.
Special Needs

The teacher has already introduced students to the autobiography, its parts and main themes. Students were asked to answer the questions on the handout for homework.

Students and teacher have previously read and discussed a couple of chapters from the book.

Initiation

"Pass the bull" strategy: ask students some questions about the main actions of the chapters we have read. How does Piri Thomas use his voice? Describe his emotion state in chapters. Is he persuasive, argumentative. . .?

Procedure

1. Different students will read aloud the questions in the handout so they can answer
them and the whole class can engage into a discussion.
2. Teacher and students will take notes while watching specific fragments of the
film. Students will have to work in groups of three in order to present a task that
will be given to them at the end of the movie.
3. The teacher will give different groups their tasks and some time to get ready to go
through their notes.
4. Different groups will briefly present their reactions to their tasks.
Closure--Assessment

Students are asked to write their 8-line reaction to the movie in an index card that the teacher will collect.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Web Resources

-Fundación Pablo Neruda. June 10, 2007. www.fundacionpabloneruda.cl.

-Neruda. Universidad de Chile. May 5, 2007. http://www.neruda.uchile.cl/index.html

-Pablo Neruda. Enciclopedia Britannica. July 13, 2007. http://www.britannica.com/eb/article-9055322/Pablo-Neruda

-Novelprize.org. http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/literature/laureates/1971/

-Roy Brown. July 2, 2007. http://www.roybrown.com/

-The World of Piri Thomas: Poet, Writer, Storyteller. . . --The Official Piri Thomas

Website. July 16, 2007. http://cheverote.com/piri.html

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Filmography
-Vida y poesía de Julia de Burgos (Puerto Rico, José García, 1978)

-Every Child Is Born a Poet (United States, Jonathan Meyer Robinson, 2002)

-Julia, toda en mí. . . (Puerto Rico, Ivonne Belén, 2002)

Network (1976)

2010-02-16T12:41:00.006-05:00

online script

quotes I like:

Academy Awards

Network won three of the four acting awards, tying the record of 1951's A Streetcar Named Desire. As of 2009, Network is the last film to have won three of the four acting Academy Awards.

Won:
Best Actor in a Leading Role - Peter Finch
Best Actress in a Leading Role - Faye Dunaway
Best Actress in a Supporting Role - Beatrice Straight
Best Writing, Screenplay Written Directly for the Screen - Paddy Chayefsky

Finch died before the Academy Awards ceremony was held and, until Heath Ledger won an Oscar for his role in 2008's The Dark Knight, was the only performer ever to win the award posthumously. In addition, both Finch and Ledger were Australian citizens.

The award itself was collected by his widow, Eletha Finch. Straight's performance as the wife of Holden's character occupied only five minutes and 40 seconds of screen time, making it the shortest performance to win an Oscar, as of 2009.

Nominated:
Best Actor in a Leading Role - William Holden
Best Actor in a Supporting Role - Ned Beatty
Best Cinematography - Owen Roizman
Best Film Editing - Alan Heim
Best Director - Sidney Lumet
Best Picture, (Lost to Rocky)

AAFI's 100 Years…100 Movies (#66)

Rubik's Cube

2010-02-12T13:46:00.028-05:00

Rubik's Magic: Link the Rings

speed solving solving

for the classic 3x3 cube, Mr. Parisi's personal best time: 00:01:45, on April 1, 2010 (3x3 cube)

Mr. Parisi solved the Rubik's Cube Ice (Rubik's Cube Jr., 2x2 cube) at Cousin Ian's house in River Edge, NJ (2010, during Amelia's baptism weekend)

Mr. Parisi also has solved (only one parity algorithm memorized: 2r, 2U, 2r, 2U, 2r, 2u) the 4x4x4 Rubik's cube, first solve was in January, with current personal best solve time of 00:08:14 on February 11, 2011 - the day Hosni Mubarak stepped down; or was it a coup? addendum: I have no learned the fianl algorithm needed in order to solve the 4x4x4 under all circumstances, that is Rr2 B2 U2 Ll U2 Rr' U2 Rr U2 F2 Rr F2 Ll' B2 Rr2

5x5x5, solved first day of purchase (July 3, 2011). Mastering the 4x4x4 allows for a, if not speedy, proper solve of the 5x5x5. My personal best solve time so far is about 10 minutes if no parity issues arise. All 4x4x4 algorithms apply here: "Dr. FuRfD" and Rr2 B2 U2 Ll U2 Rr' U2 Rr U2 F2 Rr F2 Ll' B2 Rr2 are especially applicable.

if the Petrus method is good for Bieber, it has to be good for me, have not learned it yet, but investigating. My best time is 90 seconds, not sure if the Bieber method will help me trim time.

On Saturday, May 15, 2010, Maria and I were at the Brimfield Antique mega-show. One vendor had two Rubik's cubes and two Tomy Pyraminx. The cubes were not priced (one was actually broken and un-solveable due to the repairer using incorrect replacement pieces). One Pyraminx (with plastic pyramid cover and holder) was $22 (USD). We were strapped for cash so we declined. On another note, we also saw a Slow Poke Rodriguez drinking glass at another vendor with a $65 price tag. We loved and sort of agreed that should we ever be awash in cash, we'd hunt down and purchase a Slow Poke Rodriguez glass or two.

As of February, 2010, my average time (with a well-lubricated cube) is 2 minutes. Not sure what my personal best time is. As of this point in my cube-solving skill, I am moving on to speed-solving techniques. I have also begun a quest to search for and purchase any Rubik's cube or Rubik's-related puzzles that I may be so fortunate to see at garage sales / tag sales. Donations (of any sort) are always welcome. As of February, 2011, my collection consists of 1 Rubik's cube 3x3x3 in very good condition, 1 Rubik's cube 3x3x3 (intact, with 2 replaced corner pieces due to damage), and 1 Rubik's cube (broken beyond repair and in pieces; this was the first cube I ever solved but it broke due to tossing and catching while walking the hallways of my school. I am saving all the broken pieces for nostalgia and salvage reasons.) And 1 Rubik's Revenge 4x4x4 cube (Maria got this for me, X-Mas 2010).

Pyraminx is a tetrahedron shaped puzzle invented by Uwe Meffert in 1970s. It was re-introduced by a Japanese company, Tomy Toys, in 1981

Bedlam Cube Solutions

Teaching Young Students to Solve the Rubik's Cube

Begin with a history of the cube and of its inventor

Teachers are attracted to the puzzle-solving lesson because it helps with geometry, algebra, direction-following, memorization and perseverance. But most importantly, teachers say it gives students a sense of accomplishment; they often give certificates as a reward to students who solve the cube. That sense of confidence is noticeable when a student solves the cube in public without a guide and wows a nearby adult. Their whole disposition changes for the better.

Suggest first the supreme challenge: solving the cube WITHOUT referencing the solution manuals.

You Can Do the Cube!

"Great artists steal."

on March, 2011, KSWB Fox 5 San Diego had several of these on their back lot for a local art gallery displaying these works (licthenstein, Warhol) done by an artist collective in Canada.


Moves required to solve Rubik's Cube	Number of positions
0	1
1	18
2	243
3	3,240
4	43,239
5	574,908
6	7,618,438
7	100,803,036
8	1,332,343,288
9	17,596,479,795
10	232,248,063,316
11	3,063,288,809,012
12	40,374,425,656,24
13	531,653,418,284,628
14	6,989,320,578,825,358
15	91,365,146,187,124,313
16	about 1,100,000,000,000,000,000
17	about 12,000,000,000,000,000,000
18	about 29,000,000,000,000,000,000
19	about 1,500,000,000,000,000,000
20	about 300,000,000

August, 2010: With help from Google, team proves Rubik's Cube can be solved in 20 moves or less

Hindu wins fight for funeral pyre

2010-02-10T08:26:00.007-05:00

10 February, 2010

A devout Hindu has won his bid for the right to be cremated on a traditional funeral pyre.

Davender Ghai, 71, was seeking to overturn a 2006 Newcastle City Council decision forbidding him from being cremated according to his beliefs.

Last year his challenge was dismissed by the High Court, but that ruling has been overturned at the Court of Appeal.

Judges decided the pyre would be lawful after Mr Ghai said it could include walls and a roof with an opening.

“ Today's verdict has breathed new life into an old man's dreams ” (Davender Ghai)

In February 2006, the founder of the Anglo-Asian Friendship Society (AAFS), from Gosforth, Newcastle, was refused a permit for a cremation site in a remote part of Northumberland.

Newcastle City Council said the burning of human remains anywhere outside a crematorium was prohibited under the 1902 Cremation Act.

The Ministry of Justice, which opposed the appeal case, had backed the local authority's decision.

But the Court of Appeal judges accepted that Mr Ghai was willing to be cremated within existing rules with his funeral pyre "enclosed in a structure" and ruled that the Ministry of Justice definition of a building was too narrow.

Delivering the verdict, Master of the Rolls, Lord Neuberger, who headed the appeal panel, said: "Contrary to what everyone seems to have assumed below, and I am not saying it is anyone's fault, it seems to us that Mr Ghai's religious and personal beliefs as to how his remains should be cremated once he dies can be accommodated within current cremation legislation."

'Clarify law'

Mr Ghai said the ruling had "breathed new life into an old man's dreams".

He said: "I always maintained that I wanted to clarify the law, not disobey or disrespect it.

"The Court of Appeal understood my request was consistent with both the spirit and letter of the law and my only regret is that tax payers' money would have been saved had that been recognised in 2006.

"My request was often misinterpreted, leading many to believe I wanted a funeral pyre cremation in an open field, whereas I always accepted that buildings and permanent structures would be appropriate."

He added: "All the time I had complete faith that justice would be done. Now I can go in peace."

Q: And what if, as a true believer in the religion of Jeff, my faith dictates that I smoke cannabis, eat peyote, slaughter chickens, detonate truck bombs? A: Then, you must 'respect' my beliefs.

See also Richard Dawkins and Douglas Adams, whose following quote Dawkins relies on.

"Now, the invention of the scientific method and science is, I'm sure we'll all agree, the most powerful intellectual idea, the most powerful framework for thinking and investigating and understanding and challenging the world around us that there is, and that it rests on the premise that any idea is there to be attacked and if it withstands the attack then it lives to fight another day and if it doesn't withstand the attack then down it goes. Religion doesn't seem to work like that; it has certain ideas at the heart of it which we call sacred or holy or whatever. That's an idea we're so familiar with, whether we subscribe to it or not, that it's kind of odd to think what it actually means, because really what it means is 'Here is an idea or a notion that you're not allowed to say anything bad about; you're just not. Why not? — because you're not!' If somebody votes for a [political] party that you don't agree with, you're free to argue about it as much as you like; everybody will have an argument but nobody feels aggrieved by it. If somebody thinks taxes should go up or down you are free to have an argument about it, but on the other hand if somebody says 'I mustn't move a light switch on a Saturday', you say, 'Fine, I respect that'.

In the case of an idea, if we think 'Here is an idea that is protected by holiness or sanctity', what does it mean? Why should it be that it's perfectly legitimate to support the Labour party or the Conservative party, Republicans or Democrats, this model of economics versus that, Macintosh instead of Windows, but to have an opinion about how the Universe began, about who created the Universe, no, that's holy? What does that mean? Why do we ring-fence that for any other reason other than that we've just got used to doing so? There's no other reason at all, it's just one of those things that crept into being and once that loop gets going it's very, very powerful. So, we are used to not challenging religious ideas but it's very interesting how much of a furore Richard [Dawkins] creates when he does it! Everybody gets absolutely frantic about it because you're not allowed to say these things. Yet when you look at it rationally there is no reason why those ideas shouldn't be as open to debate as any other, except that we have agreed somehow between us that they shouldn't be."

--from Adams' speech given in 1998 at Cambridge, entitled A Devil's Chaplain

Black Poets

2010-02-09T08:47:00.009-05:00

ON SEEING TWO BROWN BOYS IN A CATHOLIC CHURCH

by Frank Horne

It is fitting that you be here,
Little Brown boys
With Christ-like eyes
And curling hair.

Look you on yonder crucifix
Where He hangs nailed and pierced
With head hung low
And eyes all blind with blood that drips
From a thorny crown . . .
Look you well,
You shall know this thing.

Judas' kiss shall burn your cheek
And you will be denied
By your Peter---

And Gethsemane . . .
You shall know full well. . . .
Gethsemane . . .

You, too, will suffer under Pontius Pilate
And feel the rugged cut of rough-hewn cross
Upon your surging shoulder--

They will spit in your face
And laugh . . .
They will nail you up twixt thieves
And gamble for your garments.

And in this you will exceed God
For on this earth
You shall know Hell--

O little briwn boys
With Christ-like eyes
And curling hair,
It is fitting that you be here.

SOLACE

by Clarissa Scott Delany

My window opens out into the trees
And in that small space
Of Branches and of sky
I see the seasons pass
Behold the tender green
Give way to darker heavier leaves.

(partial)

I, TOO, SING AMERICA

by Langston Hughes

I, too, sing America.

I am the darker brother.
They send me to eat in the kitchen
When company comes,
But I laugh,
And eat well,
And grow strong.

Tomorrow,
I'll sit at the table
When company comes.
Nobody'll dare
Say to me,
"Eat in the kitchen,"
Then.

Besides,
They'll see how beautiful I am
And be ashamed--

I, too, am America.

Dream Variaton (Dream Variations)

by Langston Hughes

To fling my arms wide
In some place of the sun,
To whirl and to dance
Till the white day is done.
Then rest at cool evening
Beneath a tall tree
While night comes on gently,
Dark like me--
That is my dream!

To fling my arms wide
In the face of the sun,
Dance! Whirl! Whirl!
Till the quick day is done.
Rest at pale evening...
A tall, slim tree...
Night coming tenderly
Black like me.

MERRY-GO-ROUND: Colored Child at Carnival

by Langston Hughes

Where is the Jim Crow section
On this merry-go-round,
Mister, cause I want to ride?
Down South where I come from
White and colored
Can't sit side by side.
Down South on the train
There's a Jim Crow car.
On the bus we're put in the back---
But there ain't no back
To a merry-go-round!
Where's the horse
For a kid that's black?

Representative John Murtha Dies

2010-02-08T19:17:00.002-05:00

Rep. John Murtha, Iraq war critic, dies at 77

(article link here)

By PETER JACKSON, Associated Press Writer

HARRISBURG, Pa. – Rep. John Murtha, the tall, gruff-mannered former Marine who became the de facto voice of veterans on Capitol Hill and later an outspoken and influential critic of the Iraq War, died Monday. He was 77. The Pennsylvania Democrat had been suffering from complications from gallbladder surgery. He died at Virginia Hospital Center in Arlington, Va., with his family at his bedside, the hospital said.

In 1974 Murtha, then an officer in the Marine Reserves, became the first Vietnam War combat veteran elected to Congress. Ethical questions often shadowed his congressional service, but he was best known for being among Congress' most hawkish Democrats. He wielded considerable clout for two decades as the ranking Democrat on the House subcommittee that oversees Pentagon spending.

Murtha voted in 2002 to authorize President George W. Bush to use military force in Iraq, but his growing frustration over the administration's handling of the war prompted him in November 2005 to call for an immediate withdrawal of U.S. troops.

"The war in Iraq is not going as advertised. It is a flawed policy wrapped in illusion," he said.
Murtha's opposition to the Iraq war rattled Washington, where he enjoyed bipartisan respect for his work on military issues. On Capitol Hill, Murtha was seen as speaking for those in uniform when it came to military matters.

Murtha "was the first Vietnam veteran to serve in Congress, and he was incredibly effective in his service in the House," said Rep. David Obey, a Democrat and chairman of the House Appropriations Committee. "He understood the misery of war. Every person who serves in the military has lost an advocate and a good friend today."

Rep. Ed Markey, D-Mass., said that in part because of Murtha, "America is now on track to removing all combat troops from that country by this summer."

President Barack Obama called Murtha, who was known in his home state for helping bring money and projects to areas depressed by the decline of the coal and steel industries, "a steadfast advocate for the people of Pennsylvania for nearly 40 years" with a "tough-as-nails" reputation.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, a staunch supporter of Murtha's in Congress, recalled his service on the battlefield and in Washington. She noted that on Saturday, Murtha became the longest-serving member of Congress from Pennsylvania.

"He is well-recognized as a champion of our national security, always putting the troops and their families first," she said in a statement. "He quietly and regularly visited our men and women serving our country who were injured to assess their needs and offer them thanks and encouragement. As proud Marine, he was always Semper Fi!"

Known for his seriousness, Murtha also had a lighter side. Gov. Ed Rendell recalled Monday that "he was a funny guy, he always enjoyed a good laugh and he was somebody who was a great and loyal friend."

Rendell said Monday that he has not decided when to schedule a special election to replace Murtha. He has 10 days by law; the political parties must come up with their own candidates. The governor said that it would save taxpayer money to hold the election on May 18, the state's planned primary date, but that he might set it sooner in the event of urgent congressional issues.

Murtha was born June 17, 1932. The former newspaper delivery boy left college in 1952 to join the Marines, where he rose through the ranks to become a drill instructor at Parris Island, S.C., and later served in the 2nd Marine Division. He settled in Johnstown, then volunteered for Vietnam, where he served as an intelligence officer and earned a Bronze Star and two Purple Hearts.

He was serving in the Pennsylvania House in Harrisburg when he was elected to Congress in a special election in 1974. In 1990, he retired from the Marine Reserves as a colonel.

"Ever since I was a young boy, I had two goals in life — I wanted to be a colonel in the Marine Corps and a member of Congress," Murtha wrote in his 2004 book, "From Vietnam to 9/11."

Murtha's criticism of the Iraq war intensified in 2006, when he accused Marines of murdering Iraqi civilians "in cold blood" at Haditha, after one Marine died and two were wounded by a roadside bomb.

Critics said Murtha unfairly held the Marines responsible before an investigation was concluded and fueled enemy retaliation. He said that the war couldn't be won militarily and that such incidents dimmed the prospect for a political solution.

"This is the kind of war you have to win the hearts and minds of the people," Murtha said. "And we're set back every time something like this happens."

Murtha was a perennial target of critics of so-called pay-to-play politics. He routinely drew the attention of ethical watchdogs with off-the-floor activities, from his entanglement in the Abscam corruption probe three decades ago to the more recent scrutiny of the connection between special-interest spending known as earmarks and the raising of cash for campaigns.

Murtha defended the practice of earmarking. The money, he said, benefited his constituents.
Murtha became chairman of the House Appropriations defense subcommittee in 1989.

Murtha's critics recall the Abscam corruption probe, in which the FBI caught him on videotape in a 1980 sting operation turning down a $50,000 bribe offer while holding out the possibility that he might take money in the future.

"We do business for a while, maybe I'll be interested and maybe I won't," Murtha said on the tape.

Six congressmen and one senator were convicted in that case. Murtha was not charged, but the government named him as an unindicted co-conspirator and he testified against two other congressmen.

Murtha's district encompasses all or part of nine counties in southwestern Pennsylvania and embodies the region's stereotypes of coal mines, steel mills and blue-collar values.

State Sen. Don White, an Army veteran and a Republican who represents a portion of Murtha's district, said he and Murtha were longtime friends, despite holding different political views and serving in different branches of the military.

"He made sure that Washington, D.C., knew where Johnstown, Indiana, Kittanning and a lot of other sites in western Pennsylvania were located," White said.

Survivors include his wife of nearly 55 years, Joyce, and three children.

Samson Agonistes - John Milton

2010-02-05T11:27:00.005-05:00

"Why was my breeding ordered and prescribed
As of a person separate to God,
Designed for great exploits, if I must die
Betrayed, captived, and both my eyes put out,
Made of my enemies the scorn and gaze,
To grind in brazen fetters under task
With this heaven-gifted strength? O glorious strength,
Put to the labour of a beast, debased
Lower than bond-slave! Promise was that I
Should Israel from Philistian yoke deliver!
Ask for this great Deliverer now, and find him
Eyeless in Gaza, at the mill with slaves,
Himself in bonds under Philistian yoke."

Why study history? "Why is this stuff important?"

2010-02-05T10:46:00.012-05:00

"a citizenry that cannot begin to put the present into context, that has so little knowledge of the past, can too easily be fed stories by those who claim to speak with the knowledge of history and its lessons. . . . Knowledge of the past helps us to challenge dogmatic statements and sweeping generalizations. It helps us all think more clearly." (knowledge tends to democratize)[from margaret MacMillan's Dangerous Games: The Uses and Abuses of History ]
Many people feel that to discover the past, all you have to do is find a good book or read a single story about that historical event or historical person. However, this approach to the study of the past is greatly flawed. History is not static. History is not a single story in a single text book. Simple historical discovery may only yield the student one layer of the past. But, to really begin to understand the myriad stories that make up our past, the student must dig beyond the surface and dig beyond what we think we know. You must first discover history, but then you must also re-discover it.
If you don't study history, it would be as if you were born just yesterday morning. And if you were born just yesterday morning, than any person in a position of power above you (your teacher, parent, mayor, police, elected officials, president, any leader) could telling you anything (ANYTHING!!! - with evil intention or not) and there would be no way for you to check and prove what you're being told.
Be a part of history! Make history. You are the author of your own life story, and can influence, for positive or negatives gain, the history of your community, state, country, global community. Do you want to be a spectator (or even worse, non-participant and non-spectator) or do you want to be an activist?
too many believe history is written in stone and that it never changes--it is just a series of dates and names one is forced to memorize. A book written in 1900 about the Civil War is the same one that would be written in 1950, 2001, today. Since history NEVER changes, history textbooks should never be changed or re-written. All of this is simply not true.
"One is astonished in the study of history at the recurrence of the idea that evil must be forgotten, distorted, skimmed over . . . . The difficulty, of course, with this philosophy is that history loses its value as an incentive and example; it paints perfect man and noble nations, but it does not tell the truth.” W.E.B. Du Bois.
History is important. If you don't know history it is as if you were born yesterday. And if you were born yesterday, anybody up there in a position of power can tell you anything, and you have no way of checking up on it.

The Moral Underground: How Ordinary Americans Subvert an Unfair Economy

2010-02-05T10:41:00.003-05:00

by Lisa Dodson (New Press, 2009)