Blog 4 History

I will have one last 2008 Presidential post in October or so, for now, Jib Jab will have to do. Hat tip to Ralph E. Luker at HNN:

There’s been lots of finger pointing going on in Congress of late. They blame big oil, then speculators, and now the President. The President in turn blames Congress. All of this could have been avoided, but our elected officials made sure it would not be, and here we are.

Let me take you way back, I mean way-way back to 1975. There was somebody who recognized our growing dependence on foreign oil and who spoke out about it. Do you know who it was? The picture to the right is him… OK, I’ll tell you, President Gerald Ford. Here’s a President that some ridiculed at the time and declared him to be somewhat, stupid.

In Ford’s State of the Union Address, he announced: “We, the United States, are not blameless. Our growing dependence upon foreign sources has been adding to our vulnerability for years and years, and we did nothing to prepare ourselves for such an event as the embargo of 1973.”

He didn’t look to others for solutions or blame, he offered a solution. A program that would have included: “200 major nuclear power plants, 250 major new coal mines, 150 major coal-fired power plants, 30 major new refineries, 20 major new synthetic fuel plants, the drilling of many thousands of new wells, the insulation of 18 million homes and the manufacturing and sale of millions of new automobiles, trucks and buses that use much less fuel.”

You might be asking yourself, What the Heck Happened?

If you want to learn more, click here to read the Op-ed from the N.Y. Times (yes hard to believe).

Anyway, while we face $5 per gallon at the pump, and who knows by 2009, Congress continues not to offer solutions, but rhetoric and hyperbole, no wonder their approval rating is in a dive:

“Scientists have released some of the most detailed photographs of Mars ever taken.The pictures, which were snapped from a European Space Agency (ESA) probe, show a region of the Red Planet called the Echus Chasma.The deeply-incised area is a network of valleys that planetary geologists believe were created by channelling groundwater that once flowed on Mars’ surface.”

To read more…

Bush lifts the ban on U.S. Offshore Oil Drilling, thank God, but unfortunately there is still a ways to go.

Congressional opposition will argue this is just a short term and minimal answer. So be it. We need all the short term and minimal answers we can get until we develop more long term (and non-fossil fuel) answers. It will take time to develop wind and nuclear, and yes, natural gas and coal liquidification solutions.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi of California, in a statement, called the Bush plan “a hoax” that will “neither reduce gas prices nor increase energy independence.” Which has some asking, “What The Hell Is Nancy Pelosi Talking About?”

Meanwhile, Pelosi and the rest of Congress have done little to help the average American with the rising energy costs. Remember, this is the same Pelosi who stated that Bush’s ”policies have produced $4 a gallon gasoline.”

Surprisingly, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid last week told reporters that expanded offshore drilling is not off the table, and that Democrats will take a look at whether states should be able to choose to drill off their coasts. “I’m not knee-jerk-opposed to anything,” Reid said.

Lets hope Republicans and Democrats can stop arguing, and get together and come up with both short and long term plans.

“If one drop of blood be shed in South Carolina in defiance of the laws of the U.S., I will hang the first of the nullifiers I can get my hands on.” He went on to say he would do so on the first tree he could find. And what is also important to note, only the stupid doubted he would do so.

Yes, hard to imagine why a U.S. president who spoke so eloquently (wink) could be the first one ever targeted for assassination.

On January 30, 1835 not one but two unsuccessful assassination attempts against President Andrew Jackson occurred. Jackson was attending a funeral when lone assassin Richard Lawrence came up to him and fired a pistol at point-blank range. Bang! The weapon misfired. Attempt #1, no good. Now this assassin did not have a repeating carbine pistol (Colt was just getting around to producing its “revolver”) and had to toss his one-shooter aside and pull out another, and do so before anyone could react. Miraculously, Lawrence was able to pull another pistol and fire, but it too misfired! According to witnesses, President Jackson proceeded to beat the man over the head with his cane.

So, what are the odds of such an event? Not one, but two shots are fired, and both are lame. No one intercedes, no bodyguards or soldiers? And interestingly enough, Jackson, who was known to have killed, only beats Lawrence some before he is taken away. Also, Lawrence was later deemed insane, institutionalized, and never punished for his assassination attempt.

Thus was the first assassination attempt ever against an American President.

Tell this to a class of 16 and 17 year olds, and watch the conspiracy theories fly!

[Note: There was an incident that occurred before the above after Jackson ordered the dismissal of Robert B. Randolph from the Navy for embezzlement, who then sought revenge by attempting to punch the President.]

I was visiting Kevin’s blog and noticed a post concerning CLIOPATRIA’s top 80, or “recommended” history blogs. It sounded great, so I checked it out.

According to Ralph E. Luker, “there is a group of history blogs that seem to me to be central to history blogging.” Excellent, “central” to history blogging. This is what I needed.

So I started clicking on the links and indeed found some gems: Cabinet of Wonders, Public Historian, and maybe one or two more that I was not already aware of.

But there were some blogs that seemed more “political commentary” in their focus, or not even history blogs at all, see: Talking Points, Ghost in the Machine, Hugo Schwyzer, Altercation, Chapati Mystery, Politics & Letters and the list could go on… also of note, all lean way left. Interesting!

(UPDATE: Eunomia was accidentally listed as a “left” blog, obviously it is not. Durham-in-Wonderland was listed as well, and probably should not have been. I removed them, thanks to Luker for pointing that out. Let me be clear, right or left, I don’t care, they do not belong on a history blog list.)

There were some that sounded so promising! For example, a historian’s craft, (which looks potentially good!), but unfortunately it had only a handful of posts since May as the blogger was in the midst of a PhD Thesis I think. And still this one, Historiblogography, but it was a huge disappointment as well with posts, such as, “anal scars consistent with sexual trauma,” (this is the title of the post) which was followed by a fine choice of the best the English language has to offer.

History blogs at their best, according to Ralph E. Luker.

I hope next time Luker can offer a list with a little more “history” in it. When you say you have a list of “history” blogs, I want history to be the focus. Politics and commentary is fine, so long as there is a significant history element to the blog.

There are some blogs that handle politics and history well, like Civil War Memory for example. Kevin is not shy when it comes to his political views (many of which I disagree with), but he also has 1,2 and sometimes more history focused posts almost daily!

So I have some replacements for the above blogs (if I have more time I will expand later):

History’s Mysteries
Boston 1775
A Student of History
wig-wags
18th Century Reading Room
U.S. History Blog
Today’s History Lesson
TOCWOC

(To save you a comment: yes, some of you might be thinking this is just sour grapes as blog4history was not on the list. Sure it is always cool when someone gives you a hand. And yes, of late I have been very opinionated towards how our politicians are handling the current energy crisis. So this could be looked at as a bit of the pot calling the kettle black. So be it.)

Has anyone been able to access NY Times Historical Project site? (This is the main page, which comes up fine.) I keep getting an “Internal Server Error” which I do know is not good and I assume it is no longer around.

In an Reuters report today: “This cover-up is being directed from the White House and the office of the vice president,” said Sen. Barbara Boxer, the California Democrat who chairs the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, accusing the Bush Administration of stopping the Environmental Protection Agency from tackling greenhouse emissions. Once again, greenhouse emissions and global warming is not a fact, it is not proven. “The real truth is that we don’t know enough to relieve global warming, and — barring major technological breakthroughs — we can’t do much about it.” The latest warming cycle started in the 1800s, well before we had the power to start such a development, even if we have the power at all to initiate such a change!

But that doesn’t stop Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid from proclaiming, “The health of my grandchildren, my children and me are affected by this head-in-the-sand that global warming doesn’t exist,” Reid told reporters.

Do you think Nancy Pelosi, Boxer, and Reid realize that: Congressional Approval Falls to Single Digits for First Time Ever! Sadly, they are making Bush look good.

As for CO2, interestingly enough, today a report by German Scientists actually claims that higher levels of it may be good for plants!

Anyway, the reason for this post. It’s no wonder that from the L.A. Times to the New York Times they are slashing their editorial staffs and cutting back their budgets as circulation plummets. Is it because people are getting tired of such reports? Maybe, maybe not.

So the story above, as ridiculous as it is, the Press of course must add a proper visual to let us know just how bad things are. So what kind of photo does the AP use with this report? Two large nuclear cooling towers billowing what looks like immense amounts of what has to be pollutants into the air. My god, look at what we’re doing!

Not so fast, those towers are sending nothing more than water vapors into the air. And on top of that, this gas is not always visible! (They couldn’t just show two towers with nothing visible coming out, that wouldn’t be dramatic enough, nor honest.) The vapor is only seen in certain ambient conditions, when “plumes of water vapor (fog) can be seen rising out of the discharge from a cooling tower, and can be mistaken as smoke from a fire.” (click photo for larger image.)

But it gets better, just read the caption for this photo: “In this file photo a U.S. flag flutters in front of cooling towers at the Limerick Generating Station in Pottstown, Pennsylvania May 24, 2006. A leading U.S. Senate Democrat accused the Bush administration on Tuesday of a “cover-up” aimed at stopping the Environmental Protection Agency from tackling greenhouse emissions.”

Ah yes, Ole Glory fluttering in the wind as pollution, err, water vapor billows into the foggy, err, clear blue sky…

Here are some updates. I submitted my article on the Battle of Bayou & Cache River to the Arkansas Historical Quarterly. I submitted earlier in the year, but they requested some rewriting which I completed last month.

As some of you know I am challenging the historical record of the battle and in particular the activities of the 11th Wisconsin.

I am also working on an article for soldierstudies.org titled, “What They Wrote About,” which will use only the 1000 letters that are in the site’s database. a fun project and one I hope to complete soon!

Additionally, I am working on two articles that are more in the research stage. The first one deals with what I am calling “The Cotton Brigade” and its activities during the summer of 1862 along the Mississippi. I hope to show the corruption that existed in Gen. Curtis’s army, and in specific this part of it where colonels and possibly generals profited from illegal speculating in cotton – which also cost the lives of a dozen or more soldiers. The second article which may turn into a possible book, deals with Union soldiers and their experiences as they journeyed into “Rebeldom” and how that experience had an altering effect on them, and specifically their views on slavery, Southern society, and Southern culture. I think I have some interesting ideas on this, but we’ll see.

That’s it for me, if you have some personal updates as my fellow bloggers please feel free to share. I’d love to hear about your upcoming articles, books, and presentations!