Time Magazine has just named you its "Person of the Year" for 2006. That's right, you.
Congratulations!
Congratulations!
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Herşey Dahil Sadece 350 Tl'ye Web Site Sahibi Ol
Hızlı ve kolay bir şekilde sende web site sahibi olmak istiyorsan tek yapman gereken sitenin aşağısında bulunan iletişim formu üzerinden gerekli bilgileri girmen. Hepsi bu kadar.
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Web Siteye Reklam Ver
Sende web sitemize reklam vermek veya ilan vermek istiyorsan. Tek yapman gereken sitenin en altında bulunan yere iletişim bilgilerini girmen yeterli olacaktır. Ekip arkadaşlarımız siziznle iletişime gececektir.
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Web Sitemizin Yazarı Editörü OL
Sende kalemine güveniyorsan web sitemizde bir şeyler paylaşmak yazmak istiyorsan siteinin en aşağısında bulunan iletişim formunu kullanarak bizimle iletişime gecebilirisni
more carnivals than you can shake a stick at
Posted for your reading pleasure: the best of the recent blogosphere.
Carnival of the Vanities # 221
History Carnival #45
Teaching Carnival #18
Carnival of the Vanities # 221
History Carnival #45
Teaching Carnival #18
Roy Moore on Keith Ellison
A number of people, most prominently Dennis Prager, have assailed Keith Ellison, Dem.-Minn., the first Muslim elected to the U.S. Congress. None of that has bothered me as much as the recent babble from Roy Moore, Alabama's "Ten Commandments judge." Where Prager simply disagreeed with Ellison's decision to be sworn in on a copy of the Qur'an, Moore goes a step further in a piece on WorldNetDaily: "Muslim Ellison should not sit in Congress."
Judge Moore's knowledge of history is as bad as his understanding of the First Amendment's separation of church and state. "In 1789," he writes, "George Washington, our first president under the Constitution, took his oath to 'preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States. So help me God.'" A number of people who have actually studied this (such as J. L. Bell) say that there's no evidence that Washington added "So help me God" to the end of the Constitutionally-prescribed oath. Like the myth of young George chopping down the cherry tree, the story of Washington saying "So help me God" first appeared long after his death (in this case, in the 1850s). In fact, there's no evidence that any president said "So help me God" until Chester A. Arthur did so in 1881.
But it's Moore's next sentence that I find most infuriating: "Placing his hand on the Holy Scriptures, Washington recognized the God who had led our Pilgrim fathers on their journey across the Atlantic in 1620...." Our Pilgrim fathers? Who is he talking about? As far as I know, there are no Pilgrims among my ancestors. The one ancestor I know who goes back even nearly that far was Joseph Surratt, my eight-times great grandfather, who was born in France in 1659 and died in Maryland, founded by the Catholic Calvert family, in 1715. Judge Moore's ancestors, those Pilgrims, weren't very big on Catholics.
Joseph Surratt is just one of the 1,024 ancestors from my family tree at the ten-generations-back level. Except for that line, I know none of them beyond the great-grandparent stage. I wonder who those other 1,023 were. Maybe some were from Rhode Island, founded by Roger Williams.
Does Judge Moore remember Roger Williams? Williams was expelled from the colony of Massachusetts Bay in 1636 because he refused to toe the Puritan line. His problem was not that he wasn’t religious enough (the historian Perry Miller called Williams “the most passionately religious of men”) or that his beliefs were unorthodox (he was as strict a Calvinist as any of the Puritan leaders); what got Williams into trouble was that he didn’t like others telling him what to believe, how to worship, and so on, and he told the colony’s leaders that his religion was his business, not theirs.
He left Massachusetts and founded Rhode Island, based on the idea “that a most flourishing civil state may stand and best be maintained with a full liberty in religious concernments.” In other words, the new colony would exercise complete religious liberty; freedom of conscience would exist for everyone, including nonbelievers.
Since religion is a personal decision, Williams said, government should stay out. “All civil states,” he wrote, “are essentially civil, and therefore they are not judges, governors, or defenders of the spiritual or Christian state and worship.” Or, as Williams said in his most memorable statement on the topic, “Forced worship stinks in God’s nostrils.”
In 1639, Williams established the first Baptist church in America, based on the Baptist principle of “soul liberty,” the idea that God instilled within each person the freedom to make his own decisions in religious matters. No one has the right, Williams said, to impose his faith on another. (This is why Baptists reject infant baptism: everyone must make his own decision about God, so baptism has to wait until the child is old enough to make religious decisions for himself.)
Maybe some of my forefathers and -mothers were from Pennsylvania, established by William Penn, a Quaker, as a colony that would welcome religious dissenters, among others. Judge Moore's Pilgrim fathers, along with their Puritan neighbors in New England, didn't care much for Quakers. Who can blame them? After all, Quakers have held some awfully radical ideas, such as the notion that we all possess an "inner light," a bit of God within us, and therefore all of us--male and female, black and white, rich and poor--are equal. Being a Quaker became a capital offense in New England, and in 1660, Mary Dyer and two others were hanged because they refused to "repent" for that crime.
Maybe some of my 1,024 10th-generation ancestors were Pilgrims. Who knows? and Who cares? This isn't an anti-Pilgrim piece; rather, it's a reminder of the religious diversity that has existed here for a long time, and a reminder that Judge Moore's suggestion about Keith Ellison violates not only the Constitutional ban on religious tests for officeholders, but our history as well.
Judge Moore's knowledge of history is as bad as his understanding of the First Amendment's separation of church and state. "In 1789," he writes, "George Washington, our first president under the Constitution, took his oath to 'preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States. So help me God.'" A number of people who have actually studied this (such as J. L. Bell) say that there's no evidence that Washington added "So help me God" to the end of the Constitutionally-prescribed oath. Like the myth of young George chopping down the cherry tree, the story of Washington saying "So help me God" first appeared long after his death (in this case, in the 1850s). In fact, there's no evidence that any president said "So help me God" until Chester A. Arthur did so in 1881.
But it's Moore's next sentence that I find most infuriating: "Placing his hand on the Holy Scriptures, Washington recognized the God who had led our Pilgrim fathers on their journey across the Atlantic in 1620...." Our Pilgrim fathers? Who is he talking about? As far as I know, there are no Pilgrims among my ancestors. The one ancestor I know who goes back even nearly that far was Joseph Surratt, my eight-times great grandfather, who was born in France in 1659 and died in Maryland, founded by the Catholic Calvert family, in 1715. Judge Moore's ancestors, those Pilgrims, weren't very big on Catholics.
Joseph Surratt is just one of the 1,024 ancestors from my family tree at the ten-generations-back level. Except for that line, I know none of them beyond the great-grandparent stage. I wonder who those other 1,023 were. Maybe some were from Rhode Island, founded by Roger Williams.
Does Judge Moore remember Roger Williams? Williams was expelled from the colony of Massachusetts Bay in 1636 because he refused to toe the Puritan line. His problem was not that he wasn’t religious enough (the historian Perry Miller called Williams “the most passionately religious of men”) or that his beliefs were unorthodox (he was as strict a Calvinist as any of the Puritan leaders); what got Williams into trouble was that he didn’t like others telling him what to believe, how to worship, and so on, and he told the colony’s leaders that his religion was his business, not theirs.
He left Massachusetts and founded Rhode Island, based on the idea “that a most flourishing civil state may stand and best be maintained with a full liberty in religious concernments.” In other words, the new colony would exercise complete religious liberty; freedom of conscience would exist for everyone, including nonbelievers.
Since religion is a personal decision, Williams said, government should stay out. “All civil states,” he wrote, “are essentially civil, and therefore they are not judges, governors, or defenders of the spiritual or Christian state and worship.” Or, as Williams said in his most memorable statement on the topic, “Forced worship stinks in God’s nostrils.”
In 1639, Williams established the first Baptist church in America, based on the Baptist principle of “soul liberty,” the idea that God instilled within each person the freedom to make his own decisions in religious matters. No one has the right, Williams said, to impose his faith on another. (This is why Baptists reject infant baptism: everyone must make his own decision about God, so baptism has to wait until the child is old enough to make religious decisions for himself.)
Maybe some of my forefathers and -mothers were from Pennsylvania, established by William Penn, a Quaker, as a colony that would welcome religious dissenters, among others. Judge Moore's Pilgrim fathers, along with their Puritan neighbors in New England, didn't care much for Quakers. Who can blame them? After all, Quakers have held some awfully radical ideas, such as the notion that we all possess an "inner light," a bit of God within us, and therefore all of us--male and female, black and white, rich and poor--are equal. Being a Quaker became a capital offense in New England, and in 1660, Mary Dyer and two others were hanged because they refused to "repent" for that crime.
Maybe some of my 1,024 10th-generation ancestors were Pilgrims. Who knows? and Who cares? This isn't an anti-Pilgrim piece; rather, it's a reminder of the religious diversity that has existed here for a long time, and a reminder that Judge Moore's suggestion about Keith Ellison violates not only the Constitutional ban on religious tests for officeholders, but our history as well.
absent-minded professor strikes again
We have a new social science building, just completed, with wonderful new offices and classrooms. The big move begins next week. As folks pack up their offices, they've put books they don't want to move on a large table in a conference room, so students and colleagues can pick them up if they wish. I've put several stacks there myself.
Well, yesterday I walked in with a small armload of books, and as I was there, I looked through what others had left. Ahh, here's one that looks good! So I picked it up, opened it, and saw--you're ahead of me, aren't you?--my name. It was a book I'd put there earlier.
Well, yesterday I walked in with a small armload of books, and as I was there, I looked through what others had left. Ahh, here's one that looks good! So I picked it up, opened it, and saw--you're ahead of me, aren't you?--my name. It was a book I'd put there earlier.
Dr. B on Michael Bérubé
Bitch Ph.D. has a nice review of Michael Bérubé's What's Liberal about the Liberal Arts?
As one reader remarked in the comments, "Michael is a truly rare thing, . . . an academo-star who is not full of himself, who listens to undergrads, who thoughtfully engages conservative students and spends a lot of time on teaching even as he cranks out acclaimed books." Dr. B.'s posting is a thoughtful appreciation of his latest.
As one reader remarked in the comments, "Michael is a truly rare thing, . . . an academo-star who is not full of himself, who listens to undergrads, who thoughtfully engages conservative students and spends a lot of time on teaching even as he cranks out acclaimed books." Dr. B.'s posting is a thoughtful appreciation of his latest.
Thoughts on grading
I got those bluebook blues,
Lord, it's bluebooks all day long.
Said I got those bluebook blues,
Blue, blue, bluebooks all day long.
Sometimes it seems like
Nothin' but bluebooks from now on.
[insert appropriate blues riff]
Lord, it's bluebooks all day long.
Said I got those bluebook blues,
Blue, blue, bluebooks all day long.
Sometimes it seems like
Nothin' but bluebooks from now on.
[insert appropriate blues riff]
in the news
"Christmas trees are going back up at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport," announces the New York Times. Rabbi Elazar Bogomilsky had asked that the airport install an eight-foot tall menorah to accompany the dozen or so plastic Christmas trees. Fearing a lawsuit, the airport removed the trees; when the rabbi said that he had no plans to sue, airport officials announced that the trees would go back up.
Christmas trees? Give me a break. Creches, no. Banners proclaiming "Jesus is the reason for the season," no. Santa kneeling before the manger, NO! (That one always gave me the heebie jeebies.) But Christmas trees, despite their name, have about as much religious content as Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, Frosty the Snowman, and Saint Nick himself.
In the war on Christmas, let's pick our battles more carefully, people.
In other news, Elizabeth Bolden, of Memphis, died yesterday. Born August 15, 1890, she was acknowledged as the world's oldest person.
Our required (general education) American History course here at Kennesaw is "The United States since 1890." (There's a reason, though not a very good one, for that date.) I assume Elizabeth Bolden was the last person in the world whose life spanned that course. Sort of thought-provoking. In an hour, I will give my first final exam, in the American history course that ends in 1890. In the future, perhaps I'll call that class "America pre-Elizabeth Bolden."
Christmas trees? Give me a break. Creches, no. Banners proclaiming "Jesus is the reason for the season," no. Santa kneeling before the manger, NO! (That one always gave me the heebie jeebies.) But Christmas trees, despite their name, have about as much religious content as Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, Frosty the Snowman, and Saint Nick himself.
In the war on Christmas, let's pick our battles more carefully, people.
In other news, Elizabeth Bolden, of Memphis, died yesterday. Born August 15, 1890, she was acknowledged as the world's oldest person.
Our required (general education) American History course here at Kennesaw is "The United States since 1890." (There's a reason, though not a very good one, for that date.) I assume Elizabeth Bolden was the last person in the world whose life spanned that course. Sort of thought-provoking. In an hour, I will give my first final exam, in the American history course that ends in 1890. In the future, perhaps I'll call that class "America pre-Elizabeth Bolden."
Today in boll weevil history
On Dec. 11, 1919, the town of Enterprise, Alabama, dedicated a monument--to the boll weevil. A USDA photo is here, along with the following explanation: "After the boll weevil destroyed (1910-15) the area's cotton, diversified farming was begun. In gratitude for the resulting prosperity, the city erected a monument to the boll weevil in 1919."
Fuller article, with a newer picture, here.
Lyrics to "Ballad of the Boll Weevil" ("Just a-lookin' for a home") here.
Fuller article, with a newer picture, here.
Lyrics to "Ballad of the Boll Weevil" ("Just a-lookin' for a home") here.
Learning to Sail .... in Australia
Current Location: Gary's Anchorage, Sandy Straits, Australia
Current Position: 25º37.79' S 152º58.38' E
Next Destination: Working our way down the coast to Sydney
After three years of cruising, you would think that we'd have 'it'
down-pat by now. So, it continues to surprise me that just about every
place we go, there is something new to learn -- some new 'thing' to have
to deal with.
In Australia that 'thing' is tides, currents, and sand bars (plus hail
storms, which I'm still hoping we will miss out on). Sure, everywhere
we've been there have been tides, and the currents that come and go with
them, but not like here. Traveling through the Sandy Straits we have been
dealing with 8-12 foot tides - in 2 meter depths! We draw 2m (meaning we
hit bottom at anything under 2 meters) -- so you can imagine just how
important getting high tide right has become! In fact we have found just
over 2.5 meters and that was close to high tide. As for currents, we are
experiencing 2-4 knots. Great when it's going with us, but a bitch when
it's against us (since our average motoring/sailing speed is 5-5.5 knots,
you can imagine that going against 4 knots is not entirely fun - or
speedy). Anchoring especially has become interesting. We have to allow
for extra depth to ensure we aren't sitting on the bottom when the tide
goes out, and when the current pushes the boat one way, while the wind is
trying to push her another, it can turn into a lumpy dance. The same goes
for when we are traveling in wind against tide/current situations - the
chop produced makes for a bumpy ride!
And finally there are the sand bars. Nice shallow sandy bars, perfect for
creating surfing waves (great if you are a surfer, not so great if you are
a sailor). We haven't been over the 'serious' bar yet (Great Wide Bar at
one end of the Sandy Straits), but it is continuously on our minds. We've
heard enough bar crossing horror stories to fill our nightmares for the
next months (boats rolling & pitch polling when they catch a wave wrong
crossing over a bar). Needless to say we are waiting for very settled
weather for our 'first time'!!!
Other then re-learning how to sail (in these new conditions), our time
since leaving Bundaberg has been quite relaxing. We left Bundaberg on
Saturday, December 2nd, and have been moving slowly through the Sandy
Straits, making our way south. It is good for both of us to be out of the
marina and 'city', as we find it easier to relax when not surrounded by so
many things to do! It is easy for us to get caught up in the hustle of
town-life and forgo down time and the simple pleasures of a good book.
Since leaving Chris is back to his book a day reading frenzy! The winds
have been blowing pretty steadily from the South-South East, which of
course is the direction we need to go to get to Brisbane and then Sydney -
so we are just hanging, being patient and waiting for lighter conditions
(or a wind shift). It looks like on possibly Monday or Tuesday we will
have decent enough conditions to cross the bar and head to Brisbane (a
quick overnight trip).
Finally, the truth is revealed
PZ Myers, over at Pharyngula, has linked to a website that will change our understanding of--well, of darned near everything: Welcome to the Reformation Online: The Information Superhighway to Heaven!! Despite its title, it's not strictly a religious website. Rather, it contains, in mind-numbing detail, the TRUE history of America, from earliest times to the present. Those of us who teach this subject must take notice.
Now, a warning before you begin: This is a large website, as it would have to be to explain darned near everything. So put on a pot of coffee, then sit down and prepare to be enlightened.
John Cabot, sailing for England, was the real discoverer of America, not that Columbus fellow (who discovered only a few islands). But "by coincidence it just so happened that a Spanish Pope ... was head of the 'church' or Rome at that time," and he awarded the New World to Spain. "America" comes from Richard Amerike, Cabot's paymaster; the fraud Amerigo Vespucci saw Amerike's name written on an early map and saw an opportunity. But America should really be called Cabotia, and we are Cabotians. ("The last syllable of Cabotia is pronounced as the last syllable in Georgia.")
By the way, the Earth doesn't move, and the site has diagrams to prove it.
The site traces things all the way to the present, from the Great Flood to the Russian Revolution and the U.N., with special emphasis on the Rome-Rockefeller-Standard Oil cartel. (If you read carefully, you might detect a subtle anti-Catholic bias in the site.) Here's something I bet you didn't know: "Wal-Mart was fathered by Winthrop Rockefeller, the father of ex-President Clinton." See, "Wal-Mart began in the poor state of Arkansas in 1962. The Rockefellers BOUGHT that state and Winthrop moved there in 1954," etc.
There's a lot more, but I need to get to work. I have a lot of lectures to revise.
Oh, by the way--the site also contains your password to Heaven, but I'm not going to tell you where it is. You'll have to find it on your own.
Now, a warning before you begin: This is a large website, as it would have to be to explain darned near everything. So put on a pot of coffee, then sit down and prepare to be enlightened.
John Cabot, sailing for England, was the real discoverer of America, not that Columbus fellow (who discovered only a few islands). But "by coincidence it just so happened that a Spanish Pope ... was head of the 'church' or Rome at that time," and he awarded the New World to Spain. "America" comes from Richard Amerike, Cabot's paymaster; the fraud Amerigo Vespucci saw Amerike's name written on an early map and saw an opportunity. But America should really be called Cabotia, and we are Cabotians. ("The last syllable of Cabotia is pronounced as the last syllable in Georgia.")
By the way, the Earth doesn't move, and the site has diagrams to prove it.
The site traces things all the way to the present, from the Great Flood to the Russian Revolution and the U.N., with special emphasis on the Rome-Rockefeller-Standard Oil cartel. (If you read carefully, you might detect a subtle anti-Catholic bias in the site.) Here's something I bet you didn't know: "Wal-Mart was fathered by Winthrop Rockefeller, the father of ex-President Clinton." See, "Wal-Mart began in the poor state of Arkansas in 1962. The Rockefellers BOUGHT that state and Winthrop moved there in 1954," etc.
There's a lot more, but I need to get to work. I have a lot of lectures to revise.
Oh, by the way--the site also contains your password to Heaven, but I'm not going to tell you where it is. You'll have to find it on your own.
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